Fable
Jack and the Beanstalk - UK English accent. Content Warning. AI-Generated.
Jack and the Beanstalk (A version of the tale by TheFableCottage.com) Once there was a young man named Jack who lived with his mother on a small farm at the base of the Foggy Mountains. They were very poor and relied on selling milk from their cow, Bess, to survive. One morning, Jack's mother woke him up crying. "Jack, wake up! Go to the market today and sell our cow, Bess."
By Story for you2 years ago in Fiction
Did The Future Already Happen?
Do your past, present and future all exist right now? Are you reading this article, being born and lying on your deathbed at this very moment? Surprisingly, the answer could be yes. But how can that be? What does that even mean? How does time work? Imagine the universe like a child painting pictures on paper. Each picture shows everything that's happening in the universe in a single moment. With each new moment, all kinds of things occur everywhere – people are born and die, galactic civilizations expand, you miss the bus – and our universe-kid makes a new picture that replaces the old one. In this way you get something like a movie – only the moment we're in right now is real. The past is what happened before, now it’s gone. The future is still to come and hasn't been drawn yet. This is kind of how time feels, right? Each moment being replaced by the next one. The past is far behind us, the future doesn’t exist. But what if time is something else? What if the universe-kid has already finished all its drawings and stacks them on top of each other? This way we get a block – a block of time that contains the whole history of the universe. All moments that have ever existed or will ever exist. But in this block, in this stack of moments, the past, the present and the future are equally real and exist at the same time. This feels wrong – the only things that we perceive as real are those things happening now. How can the past and future be real right now? The problem is that according to the theory of relativity, they kind of have to be. Heavily simplified, relativity says that time and space are not separated, but one connected spacetime. When you move through space, you are also moving through the block. This means time passes differently for different people, depending on how they move through space relative to each other. And this also means that what someone perceives as “now” is a certain cut along the block – a cut that will depend on how fast they are moving. So what you think is “now” is really only your now – there are many different “nows” in the universe and all of them are equally real. This also means there is no universal past or future. Ok. This is a lot – how does this work? Imagine three alien spaceships a million light years away. The first one just hovers in space, not moving relative to you. You both experience the same “now”, the same present. If you had a magical instantaneous internet connection, you could do a video call right now and chat about alien things. The second spaceship is flying away from us at 30 km/s, about 3 times faster than a human rocket. It is moving differently through the block of time than you are, which means its “now” is different from yours. With the magical internet, the aliens can talk to your ancestors in 1924, when humanity was discovering the first galaxies outside the Milky Way. The third spaceship wants to visit Earth and is flying towards you at 30 km/s, moving at the opposite angle of the second ship through the block of time. It experiences yet another “now” – with the magical internet, the aliens can talk to your descendants in the year 2124, when humanity has already built cities on Mars and Venus. Ok, so we have three different “nows” – so which one is correct? Well, that’s the problem. Relativity is based on one powerful principle – cosmic democracy: the fact that the point of view of all observers in the universe is equally valid. All those “nows” have to be equally real. But if this is the case, your past, present and your future all have to exist at the same time, right now! Because for the different aliens, they all happen in their present. This means that the distinction between the past, the present and the future is an illusion. The universe is not a bunch of things evolving through time, like in a movie – but a static block in which the past, the present and the future all coexist and are real. How can that be? Well, think about a galaxy outside the observable universe, too far away to ever visit or see. But even if you can’t get there and don’t see it, it is still real. The future might be the same! But if the past is not far behind us and the future actually exists, then… there is no “movie”. Things don’t happen in the universe. The universe just “is” – like a frozen block of dead, cosmic ice, with everything that will ever happen already written and decided. Is the Future Already Written? If all times coexist and are equally real, then the future has to be already written. But that’s not how you experience things. It feels like you can mold your future with your decisions. It really feels like you're free to choose to stop watching YouTube to not miss the bus. But if the future is set in stone, you can’t “decide” anything. So are your choices an illusion? Well… maybe. Maybe your free will is a mirage. And maybe you missing the bus was already predetermined at the Big Bang, so feel free to continue watching. Except...quantum stuff is ruining everything again. Quantum processes can’t be predicted, not even in principle. Not because we are silly and don’t know how to do it – according to quantum physics, quantum particles are intrinsically random. For example, if you have a radioactive atom, it could decay at any moment, in the next second or in the next million years. We can calculate the probability that it will decay tomorrow, but no oracle in the universe will ever be able to tell you with absolute certainty if it will do so or not. But quantum particles can change the world. Imagine a radioactive element randomly decays and causes a genetic mutation in a nearby mammal. And then many generations later that mutation has led to a weird mix of duck and mammal that makes no sense. Or the atom decays a day later and the weird creature will never exist. If quantum stuff is really uncertain, the future can’t be set in stone. But if the future is an untold story, it can’t be real in the same way as the past is. So what happens when uncertain things, like the decay of our atom, become real? Is that moment the present? Is this “now”? But before we saw that cosmic democracy makes it impossible to define an absolute “now”. What’s going on here? It turns out that for every individual object – you, an alien, an atom – the past, the present and the future are always well defined. Your death will always happen after your birth – never before, and never at the same time. Now you are clearly between your birth and your death. So for you at least, "now" makes perfect sense. If we don’t play tricks like going to the other side of the universe and using aliens in funny ways to find out what “now” means, things again start to look ordered and nice, and individual “nows” seem to exist. Can we do something with them? Let’s return to our block universe. Maybe the block does not contain the future – and maybe we just imagined it wrong. Maybe the block is just the past, and a thin layer on the surface is the present. That surface is not smooth, but bumpy and uneven. It’s been made by joining countless individual “nows” – each experienced by someone or something in the universe, each equally real and valid. And all observers do their bit, so cosmic democracy is still true. As new things happen and uncertain things become certain –radioactive atoms decay, new species of mammals arise, people miss the bus– the border moves upward, creating new time in the universe. Instead of a frozen block of time with a future that has already been written, the block is growing and things happen. You can again decide your future! Maybe leave earlier so you won’t miss the bus! Let’s recap. We started with time as a movie – one “now” after another, where only the current “now” was real. Then we found out that because of relativity there are multiple “nows”, all of them real somehow – which could mean that we are living in a frozen block universe where things don’t happen and you don’t really have free will. And we ended up with a kind of growing block universe, where time passes and the future is open. So which is correct? What is real? The present? The past? Are the dinosaurs as real as you are right now? What do the aliens on the other corner of the universe think about all this? To be honest, no one knows. What we’ve learned are two possibilities to describe time, but they're not the only ones. Some scientists think that the idea of “now” only makes sense near you, but not in the universe as a whole. Others think that time itself doesn’t even exist – that the whole concept is an illusion of our human mind. And others think that time does exist, but that it's not a fundamental feature of the universe – rather, time may be something that emerges from a deeper level of reality, just like heat emerges from the motion of individual molecules or life emerges from the interactions of lifeless proteins. We could go on, but… aren’t you about to miss the bus? The concept of time is abstract and elusive, possibly beyond complete human comprehension. Fortunately, there’s a vast world of things we do understand about the universe that you can explore right now —
By Abednego Thaddaeus2 years ago in Fiction
A Swampscott Summer Solstice
In a town just north of Salem, Massachusetts there is a beautiful seaside town called Swampscott, Massachusetts with only about 14,000 people living there. It rests along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and almost everyone there makes their living off fishing, selling, or cooking fish. However, there was a time long ago when this town belonged only to the Native tribes that founded it. The tribe's names were Naumkeag, Pennacook, and Pawtucket. Most people living in Swampscott in 2024 have long since forgotten where their heritage comes from and who was on that land first. However, there is a small group of women who have not forgotten. There are certain times throughout the year they will gather together on the shores of King's Beach to perform their ancestor's rituals. On the day of the Summer Solstice, four women gather as the sun sets and reach a secluded part of the beach. They gather some dry oak branches and build a bonfire. These women are in their late 40's to early 50's and they have heard the tales of their Native American heritage from their grandparents and parents who heard it from theirs and so on and so on. They have been taught to respect their heritage and keep its rituals and so, that is why they have gathered here. Their names are Enola, Dolli, Wanyecha, and Dakota. They have gathered here on several occasions before tonight. They have done this since they were little girls. However, tonight would be much different than ever before, and as Dolli stokes the fire, Wanyecha goes to gather more dry oak to keep the fire going for a few hours. Enola has gotten out her sage and has started to cleanse the area and Dakota or Kota for short has started dancing around the fire. Enola just smiles at her and says, "Kota, will you ever grow up?" Kota, always the tomboy and the wild child answers back, "Now, what would be the fun in that?" Enola rolls her eyes and continues sageing. Dolli smiles and joins her best friend, her sister with her dance. After a short time, Wanyecha comes back, places the wood next to the fire, and sits down. At that, Kota and Dolli stop dancing and sit down as well for they know it is time to start the ritual. Enola in her motherly voice clears her throat and says, "Ladies, we begin." The sisters all join hands and start to chant. After a few minutes, when all seems still and all you can hear is the ocean lapping against the shore and the women chanting Enola speaks out and says, "Ancestors, the world is so different now but we intend to honor you and keep your memory alive. Thank you and the gods above for another Summer Solstice." Next, Enola takes the clay mixture and lines her face with it to prepare for the Summer Solstice dance. Next in the circle to speak is Wanyecha who has seemed rather deep in thought all night. As she begins to speak, the fire seems to glow brighter. She says, "God of Fire we hope this offering brings you power and pleases you. I am angered by what I see today and how this town has forgotten where it came from, I urge you to remind them." The sisters suddenly all feel tense and uneasy but no one breaks the circle and no one lets go of the other hand. Wanyecha takes the clay mixture, marks her face, and continues to hold her sister's hands. Dolli speaks up next, "Fire god and Mother Nature who gives us our seasons and this Summer Solstice hear our cry! We thank you, we worship you and we wish all could see your power!" The light from the fire is now shining immensely bright and seems to glow all around them as if it is lighting up the entire beach. No one else is around and as Dolli takes her turn with the clay mixture she wonders what will happen next. But, she has no time to think as she returns hands with her sisters Dakota speaks up taking her turn last. "This city has forgotten its past and wants to cover it up, forget it, or pretend it didn't exist. But we know and we remember. We will always remember. Help us great Spirit, help them remember." As Kota placed her hands in the bowl and started to place her face paint on her the fire whose glow had seemed to spread to all corners of the beach suddenly seemed to suck itself back inward and went back to a regular bonfire. Suddenly, Wanyecha produces a cloth sack and tosses it into the fire. The fire whooshes upward and outward into the woods and toward the town behind them. The sisters all look at Wanyecha and say simultaneously, "What was in that sack?!" She doesn't have a chance to answer however because suddenly there are voices all around them but none of them in English. The sisters all look at each other wide-eyed for they know this language but have not heard it for many, many years. It is the language of their ancestors, Wampanoag. They listen as they sway and suddenly it is Kota who speaks first as she says, "They say, they shall pay with blood." The sisters look once again at Wanyecha. It is Enola who speaks first this time. "Wanyecha, what was in that sack?" She responds, "Just some old bones, some of my blood and dust from my ancestors." Enola looks at her gravely as she says, "Well, I hope you're prepared for what you have just woken up." Suddenly, the winds pick up and blow out the fire, the voices increase and cries are heard from the town. Enola says, "Oh, we've done it now. Get in your cars. Let's go!"
By Lindsey Altom2 years ago in Fiction
The Fairy Flag and the Daughter of Thunder
'Are you seriously telling me,' the chief of Clan McLeod whispered furiously into the ear of the archeologist as the reporter approached, 'that the only press coverage you could manage to get was a woman from The Guardian? You know I don't hold with those lefties. If this doesn't work they'll make us out to be crackpots and blatherskytes.'
By Paul A. Merkley2 years ago in Fiction
I have a photoshoot tomorrow. Can you recommend me some colors and outfit options that will look good on camera?
Colors: Solid Colors: Opt for solid colors instead of busy patterns. They help keep the focus on you. Bold, Vibrant Colors: Colors like royal blue, emerald green, and rich reds photograph well.
By ODS ACADEMY2 years ago in Fiction
