@albinostrix - Tumblr Blog

On of the less intuitive things about love, I've found, of any kind, is the importance of needing things.

I didn't realize it until recently, but I've always seen love as something requiring sacrifice, selflessness, patience, and generosity- to ask for nothing is to be the best person I can be, small and quiet and never in the way, always happy and helpful, self-sufficient and present when desired.

It's only as an adult, now, that I'm beginning to see the selfishness of wanting nothing.

I cut my friend's hair in my kitchen the other day. They wanted a trim and I had the skills, so I offered, and was genuinely excited when they stopped hesitating over "bothering me" and took me up on it. It was a peaceful afternoon, and we had tea and chatted for an hour or more.

My brother and I shared popcorn at the movies a while ago. When I came time to pay, I pulled my card out like a wild western sheriff and slapped it on the machine before he could fight me for it first. The satisfaction was delightful.

Someone called me crying on the phone the other day. Kept apologizing for disturbing me at work, talking about how they were bothering me on my lunch break. I was telling the truth when I told them that really, I was flattered and honored and relieved, knowing that if they were hurting I would know, that I didn't have to worry in silence. It felt good to hear them slowly come down, and to know that they knew it would be better soon, and to hear them laugh wetly on the other end. We're getting together for a visit next week.

It's hard to need things, if you've trained yourself not to. It's hard to want things, when you don't know how to want anymore. Trusting people is difficult, and so is relying on them, but I don't know where I'd be without the people who rely on me.

I've heard a lot of people say, "Nobody will love you unless you love yourself". I've had a lot of thoughts about it. It's not right, but it's not wrong, either, I think.

"Nobody will love you unless you love yourself"... I've always taken that to mean, "You will not be lovable until you develop a positive view of yourself as a person".

Now, I think it's sort of inside-out.

"Nobody will love you unless you love yourself"... because nobody can show their love to you in a way that you can accept until you treat yourself kindly, and learn what you need, and what you want, and how to ask for it, and then give that vulnerability away.

Love, for me, is someone I ask for a ride to the airport. Whether they end up doing this or not is irrelevant.

It's not needy, or selfish, or taking up energy. It's giving the gift of being wanted, and needed, and thought of. It's giving someone the security of being part of someone's life.

rovermcfly

I literally CANNOT repeat enough how much you need to install an adblocker and stop using apps

like. genuinely. you shouldn't be seeing ads. philosophically speaking. aesthetically speaking. psychologically speaking. you MUST remove them from the spaces that you consider *yours*. imagine some dropshipping company came up to you and went "hey can we put these ads all over your home so everywhere you turn you'll be seeing an ad for us?" would you let them?? FUCK no you wouldn't.

so please god. install ublock origin or whatever works for you. delete the apps and use whatever website you can't live without through the browser. you are LITERALLY worth more as a human being, your TIME, your MIND is worth more than the ads they put on your feeds.

rovermcfly

medicalmishapwaiting2happen

For everyone's betterment: Free system-wide adblocker for android and ublock origin for firefox (which you should be using or a fork thereof, please for fuck's sake do not use chrome or edge)

behaviornerdwithahat

In case anyone finds it helpful because mobility aids are horrifically expensive and inaccessible…

And for those people who have access to mobility devices but might benefit from a second chair they can abuse without risking expensive damage…

Erik Kondo has made a website, Open Source Innovations, that details plans for DIY wheelchairs. These wheelchairs can be made from common materials like wood, plastic, and pvc. They are lightweight and can be custom fit to the user allowing from the same degree of movement you would get from a custom chair. And they are durable and easily repairable. (he has been stress testing his latest design by dropping it down stairs, dropping it out of a car, launching it across a driveway, and throwing it off a deck). Its 12lbs and I think he said its was in the $200 ish range for parts.

He also is working on cheap, open source, accessible designs for beach chairs, off road chairs, motorized attachments (think smart drive), and so on. Plus he skateboards in his wheelchair. Cool dude, helpful info, pass it on.

sumi-sprite

It's incredibly sad people have to resort to this, but it's a damn good resource. Use it. Spread awareness. Maybe one day people with physical disabilities won't need DIYs like this. But until then, reblog and share.

this-is-accessibility

This is Accessibility!

That's so amazing! It is unfortunate that so many people will need this, but very very cool that it exists

organizationstationone4all

That other link seems to be broken.

this-is-accessibility

Thank you so much for putting the working one!

I will add it to my original reblog as well.

h0lyshift

The older i get the more i understand why some people become obsessed with privacy, not because they’re hiding something, but because being constantly perceived starts to feel spiritually exhausting.

melyzard

Did you know that soda machines at restaurants and movie theaters spy on you? That most common new cars now record your sexual preferences and send it to the manufacturer (and also data about anyone who also gets in your car, walks by your car, and maybe happens to be within visual range of your car)? That grocery stores are trying to force customers to download an app to scan barcodes on shelves instead of putting up prices, so the app can scan the phone, decide how much that customer should be squeezed for, and adjust the price? That more and more innocent people are being sent to jail for crimes committed hundreds of miles away because an AI facial recognition algorithm spit their faces out and the cops didn't bother to do the most basic of checks?

I am not uptight about privacy because I'm hiding something. I'm uptight about it because the people who dismiss my right to privacy are dangerous to you and me and our families, personally, all the time.

And often, they are assholes, too.

naturalhairhow101

Wearing my hair like this is my way of showing my gratitude and appreciation to my ancestors who endured countless atrocities and still persevered.

@da_zha_voo

#love#Gratefulness#mindfulness#gratitude#spirituality

chilewithcarnage

dreaming-demonic

Yeah neopronouns arent a new fangled concept gen z came up with btw

disabled-models

Aariana Rose Philip, a model with cerebral palsy, for Interview.

pink-slay

It's so cool to see a disabled model in tilt in a powerchair. As someone who has to be in approximately 30-45 degrees of tilt (in a powerchair just like hers) just to move distances longer than 10 feet, I love seeing how it looks powerful, especially when disabled people are told their whole lives how medical everything about them is.

dingusmysquingus

I also love the taking up space of it, I always feel so embarrassed because I also have to tilt/recline my chair a lot to be able to get around and this photo takes a position that often feels vulnerable and reframes it as power

headspace-hotel

Seems legit

headspace-hotel

we all hear about kudzu being introduced as "erosion control" in the South but I don't think contemporary people understand on a gut level what that means

these are images from a 1930s pamphlet that endorsed kudzu, entitled "stop gullies: save your farm"

It was Bad.

headspace-hotel

Invasive plants need to be understood as part of a much larger cycle of incredible violence against the land.

peat-moss-and-starlight

For context: erosion on that scale occurred as a result of our clear-cutting entire states. The land east of the Mississippi used to be covered in old-growth forest to an extent that we literally can’t imagine anymore, because most of us have never seen a forest over 100 years old. It turns out if you remove all vegetation from a landscape, you end up with a bunch of loose soil ready to move downstream. A fast-growing plant that covers everything in dense vegetation sounds like salvation when you’re surrounded by 40-foot deep gullies that get wider with every rainstorm.

epicyurian

A lot of the south too was covered in Canebreaks, basically bamboo forests like a lot of South Asia, I don't know the specifics of the ecology, but bamboo being a grass I assume is rhizomatic like other grasses and forms a big net of roots that prevent erosion. *I assume* (pleez ecologists weigh in)

headspace-hotel

Yes, the destruction of Canebrakes was a direct cause of this erosion we see here. Canebrakes were destroyed, using slave labor, to make room for cotton plantations. You can read about it here.

Canebrakes built up incredibly rich, fertile soil and are amazing at preventing erosion. They form incredibly strong mats of rhizomes. And their roots are known to go 10 feet deep into the soil.

The erosion we see in these pictures was a result, very much directly, of the Canebrakes being destroyed.

allonsybadwolf

"crochet can't be made by machines" went from being a cool fun fact to being a call to action of "so if you see mass manufactured crochet in Target, that was made by a person and they were underpaid and you should boycott it" which is true, it was made by a person, but EVERY item of clothing you own (that you did not purchase from a company using ethical labor) was made by a person being underpaid (at *best*.)

Sewing machines are operated by *people*. Knitting machines are operated by *people*. Yes lots of the process is automated but you cannot tell a machine "make me a t-shirt" or "make me a knit cardigan".

Higher awareness of fast fashion, and the true human labor and abuse behind it, is GREAT, but let's not pretend that the crochet hat in target is THE problem. Every article of clothing in target is the problem. "All clothes are made by people" is the jumping off point here into understanding this issue it's not just crochet it's the whole thing ahhhhHHHHHHHHHH

lizardsfromspace

In the early 70s Sesame Street was created with an eye towards educating poor, inner-city children for free, and became a massive hit with all children. In 2016, faced with going off the air forever after facing conservative efforts to destroy public broadcasting since basically its beginning, new episodes became a timed exclusive for premium cable network HBO. In 2022 HBO Max, newly merged with and taken over by reality TV channel Discovery, removed Sesame Street episodes and spin-offs from streaming as a tax write-off and scheme to avoid paying residuals.

saintofpride201

Sesame Street's official YouTube channel is uploading the episodes for free, btw. A lot of creators are rebelling against this bullshit.

amy-vic

Sesame Street on PBS KIDS. Play games with Elmo, Big Bird, Abby and all of your Sesame Street friends. Watch videos and print coloring pages

As always, America, PBS has you and your kids' backs.

scifigrl47

I also want to put in a plug for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, spearheaded by GBH in Boston to preserve and make available public funded programming from around the country. More than 7000 public television and radio programs are available to stream through the website, with more than 40000 hours of programming archived and available to researchers and educators through the Library of Congress and GBH itself.

https://americanarchive.org/

fforsythiaaa

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

creekfiend

the truly unfortunate thing about the Back In My Day phenomenon is that we never listen to the true and important ones, like "back in my day all the children had fucking polio" or "back in my day there were significantly more insects and bodies of water actually froze solid all winter without thawing out" and so on.

probuccalfat

every time a young gay person quits smoking or makes the decision that they want to quit, the sun shines on us all with the promise of happiness and beauty.

probuccalfat

i appreciate everybody that’s sharing the sentiment that it’s good for anyone to quit smoking (it is) but i very specifically wanted to highlight and encourage LGBTQ youth because lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are about 1.5 to 2.5 times more likely to smoke cigarettes than heterosexual people, and the statistics for transgender people are even higher than cisgender people. this is due to tobacco companies marketing heavily and aggressively to LGBTQ communities and exploiting the higher rates of mental health struggles prevalent in our communities.

i want and hope to see all my LGTBQ people live long, healthy, fulfilled lives despite how predatory and punishing this world can be. you should stay around as long as you can to make it a little better in your own way.

sztupy

A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previou

ayeforscotland

Let’s fucking go

made-in-manetheren

This is HUGE.

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.

TL;DR Google reeeeeally stepped in it this time.

alianoralacanta

5. If the words are Google's, this solidifies the position of universities who demand that all answers from AI are fully cited. If all the in-line citations now have to be (Google, 2026), that's going to make it obvious when someone's trying to use Google as a source. There's still the difficulty with people who are academically dishonest by trying to pass off the AI writing as their own. 6. 91% accuracy is officially too low to use as a source of references, which means the AI can't be used as a source of references either. This makes it less legitimate for such purposes than Wikipedia of all places (Wikipedia might need date/time proof of when it was accessed for the reference to be valid, but at least it is possible to prove the link existed at a particular date and time). 7. This will help encourage the rollout of courses on how to avoid AI search for students who need academic accuracy, because it's statistically not good enough to use. 8. This strengthens the case intellectual property authors have against Google in the EU, as this is proof that an intellectual property transfer took place.

krasnoarmeyets

imo the state monitoring your private messages is basically on the same level as opening and reading physical mail or perhaps breaking into your house to install bugs and cameras

lilithsaintcrow

"...although the change was expected to affect only 3% of users, “this could amount to 2m devices rendered obsolete according to some estimates, potentially generating over 624 tons of e-waste”."

Up to 2m e-readers made before 2013 will no longer be able to download new titles

And a chaser, for those interested:

Amazon is ending support for older Kindles, but you still have easy ways to keep reading—no upgrade required.

depsidase

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs