Oddtail @oddtail@meow.social

So, hey, I'm a translator. And I'm pretty much *always* looking for more work.

I translate to and from Polish.

Not the most in-demand language in the English-speaking world, but if you need a translation done or know someone who does, hit me up.

I'm good at what I do, I have low rates, and I can work pretty damn fast if that's what you need.

I am also pretty versatile, I've translated everything from literature to marketing to technical stuff.

#introductions

Might as well do this.

Hi! I'm a leftist, furry nerd from Poland, 32 y.o.

I'm shy/socially inept, but always vaguely hope to talk/befriend new people, esp. online (so talk to me about whatever). Both online and IRL, I default to treating everyone as a friend unless given a reason not to.

I'm a cis guy (pronouns he/him), but if you're a furry - I'm vastly more comfortable and less prone to anxiety if you assume I'm a woman (she/her) and if we interact as such online.

For instance, "Shogun" by James Clavell isn't exactly a thrill-a-minute story and it's a huge book, a real doorstopper. It sometimes has a rather deliberate pace, and a lot of Early Modern Japanese politics, but I enjoyed the book a lot.

EXCEPT the initial chapters, when they were on a ship or whatever. I patiently endured the part until they got off the damned boat.

I'm not even sure WHY I have such a strong negative bias against maritime stories. It's just... they seem inherently dull to me.

I find it interesting that adventure stories set on High Seas were historically so popular.

Dunno why, but the thought of pirates and sailors and sea adventures as a premise instantly bores me even thinking about it.

Other than the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which is a fun enough watch I guess, I couldn 't be bothered.

I'm curious what the main appeal is. I imagine the romantic myth of a pirate as a symbol of freedom, but what about stories about the British Navy or whatever?

What I mean is - yes, the fact there's an "I" is probably an emergent property of a set of understood or at least understandable mechanisms.

But it doesn't answer why this emergent property, well, emerges. Not why there's a thinking being, but why this thinking being is an "I" of some sort. And what that "I" is.

Consciousness is kind of weird and creepy.

We can somewhat explain how thinking or even perceptio works. Imperfectly, but it is reducible to systems.

But the subjective experience of existence, the fact that there's an "I" somewhere in there, is the difficult part (see: philosophical zombie. The question is not whether p. zombies exist. The question is why we are not ALL p. zombies).

I feel Descartes touched on that, but didn't really go into the question.

Also, I put so many "[noun]-wise" phrases in those Toots that I think they are barely readable.

Screw it, not gonna rewrite those.

I'm sure there's plenty of cool looks I could theoretically pull off, but in an example of "people want what they can't have", the only ones I am even remotely interested in are precisely the ones that skew extremely feminine and don't work at ALL for my body, and couldn't even be reasonably compromised or worked around.

I know, it's a very "First World problems" thing, but still a source of no small frustration for me.

Let's ignore my weird issues around gender in any Internet situations. Still mostly a cis guy.

But wearing feminine-coded clothes would still be neat fashion-wise if I had a - let's say, twink-like physique.

Since I don't, I default to the most boring clothing possible and don't even think of having a personal style fashion-wise.

Which is usually a non-issue, but sometimes SUCH a big bummer.

I am comfortable in my body for the most part.

But ngl, for clothing options alone, I wish I had a different body type.

I'll ignore that nowadays I'm fat - this can be eventually remedied by exercising and such. But I was always rather masculine-looking and muscular. Never had a lean look, not built for it.

Clothing-wise, I'd be so happy to look completely androgynous, both body-wise and face-wise.

Also, WTH is there a popular name "Barbara" (both in PL and in EN, although the pronunciation is a bit different), which means basically "a foreign woman", but there is no equivalent like "Barbar" or "Barbarus"?

Seems weird.

Also, to my slight surprise, the word apparently *does* come from the same source as "barbarian" (granted, the similarity is less obvious in English).

Apparently, "rhubarbarum" in Latin meant rhubarb that was foreign (hence the "barbarum" part, which simply meant "foreign", because Romans were the straight white men of cultures, to borrow a phrase from Hannah Gadsby)

Polish for "rhubarb" is "rabarbar".

I think we can all agree we got the better word.

(it *is* also closer to the original Latin, but that's not the point)

All in all, I was impressed by how quickly he learnt (he can be smart, but sometimes he really is a dumb boy), and this opens up so many opportunities health-wise and as far as socialising with other dogs goes (he goes off the leash on regular walks, but only so often, and I rarely allow him off the leash for playing with dogs, for safety reasons - again, streets and such).

Should've tried years ago, but my wife was paranoid an accident would happen or that the dog couldn't handle it.

I tested out going on a bicycle ride with my dog.

'twas a smashing success. By the end of the 1h trip (alternated walking & cycling), doggo got the gist of how to walk with a leash, w/o a leash, when it's OK to explore on his own and when to keep pace with the bicycle.

No issues stamina-wise either (we did start very slow).

Also, good places for a dog walk w/o a leash (no nearby streets and such) are near-ish my house, but not QUITE close enough to be practical. Bicycle solves that.

"Charge now", says my smart watch's display.

"Fine, fine, I will", I grumble as I pick up my battleaxe.

Just a reminder for no particular reason that Heracles (or Hercules, if you prefer the Latin name, although I have no idea why you would) is bi as fuck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracles#Men

Found this cool article:

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/657-welcome-to-planet-voronoi-a-capital-place/

Apparently actual country borders don't really reflect a Voronoi diagram, but they're close-ish. And in some cases, they do reflect historical borders surprisingly closely (looking at you, Morocco).

So that's fun.

I'd intuitively think pre-modern (and especially Medieval) cities would create Voronoi-like patterns on the map, because the ability to project power and hold land depends on the distance from the nearest castle or fortress (discounting rivers and mountains, naturally). Similarly, relocating country/region capitals would take distance into account in this way.

(there *are* articles that propose weighted Voronoi diagrams for zoning of electoral districts, which makes sense to me)