A Lovely Desolation

Art, photos, and design by John W. Sheldon Old person in the US

[alovelydesolation]

The Orion Nebula, as seen from my light-polluted back yard. This is about 10 minutes worth of total exposure time, stacked to enhance detail and reduce image noise.

[odyver]

alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?

under 18, AI is a net positive

under 18, AI is a net negative

18-29, AI is a net positive

18-29, AI is a net negative

30-45, AI is a net positive

30-45, AI is a net negative

46-60, AI is a net positive

46-60, AI is a net negative

over 60, AI is a net postive

over 60, AI is a net negative

Remaining time: 2 days 12 hours

[odyver]

Question 2/3

How often do you visit or interact with museums/archives (whether in person or online)?

Frequently (multiple times per month)

Often (multiple times per year)

Occasionally (a couple times per year)

Rarely (once every couple of years)

Never :(

Remaining time: 2 days 13 hours

[odyver]

Question 3/3

If you saw a museum was using AI in exhibits, marketing, research, etc., would you be more or less inclined to visit that museum?

under 18, more inclined

under 18, less inclined

18-29, more inclined

18-29, less inclined

30-45, more inclined

30-45, less inclined

46-60, more inclined

46-60, less inclined

over 60, more inclined

over 60, less inclined

Remaining time: 2 days 13 hours

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

🫶

[knivesandteeth]

Anyone else think the reason ds9 deeply resonates with Queer people is because, at its Heart, its about a third space created but a group of patriotic people fundamentally alienated from their own people. Like obviously garak and quark but consider how were told in the first episode that Kira has been sent there to get her "out of the way" of the civilian government, how the things shes needed to do to both survive and secure their freedom seem deeply uncomfortable to all the civilian leaders. Dax considering both Joran and her eagerness towards reassociation make her basically a non entity on Trill. Bashir takes a while but the augment reveal puts him firmly in this Category. Obriens difficulty with his ptsd and moving passed personal préjudices puts him at odds with a lot of federation ideals. Siskos deep trauma around the loss of his wife and inability to move pass this, makes him very inconvenient to a federation desperate to pass itself off as a Utopia. He then becomes more and more unacceptable as he leans further into his role as in emissary, with the federation seemingly very uncomfortable with this religious expression. Jesus, Worf begins his tenure by getting himself exiled from klingon space.

Like idk, I dont think its all that shocking a Bunch of Queer people most liked the show about having a complicated relationship with your culture and never being allowed to go home.

[mechanomorphic]

queer muppet moments i would make happen if i was in charge of the muppets:

the electric mayhem (minus animal bcs hes their kid) arent a polycule, theyre monogamous. but specifically they break up and date each other one at a time. they have a chart.

animal is genderfluid. this is mentioned exactly once bcs kermit calls her he and she starts yelling "SHE/HER!" kermit corrects himself and the show goes on

rizzo made out with gonzo once but he still considers himself straight bcs gonzo is not a guy, he's a whatever. gonzo agrees with this

uncle deadly dated tim curry. it did not end well.

actual emotional scene of gonzo talking about how he feels abt gender. no jokes.

kermit: no matter what, gonzo is still gonzo, and we're always going to support gonzo no matter what gonzo decides- gonzo: kermit. i still use he/him

statler and waldorf wedding episode. theyre divorced by the next

beaker trying to ask bunsen out on a date. in the end it turns out bunsen thought they'd been dating for years.

miss piggy hanging out with drag queens

related, miss piggy starting to present butch and kermit being Really Into It. hes embarassed abt it

pepe begins a story with "when i was a little girl...."

janice decides to start using just she bcs "like, i could never be her"

rowlf mentions having a husband. even kermit is like "??? since when??!"

actually i change my mind. genderfluid animal is mentioned a second time when dr teeth is calling for instrument and mic checks, he turns to animal and yells "animal! pronoun check!" "HE/HIM" "alright!"

[irisbleufic]

Swedish Chef neopronouns: bork/bork/bork

[alanaisalive]

The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.

[iguanamouth]

oh shit

[throughshadow-to-the-edgeofnight]

[alanaisalive]

As the OP of this post, I’m going to threaten that if this gets to one million notes by the 10 year anniversary on 1 June 2026, one year from today, I will get a lower back tattoo of the loch ness bear monster.

[docd666]

Y'all know what to do Tumblr.

[maggotsandcream]

Thinking about how even though most people draw (understandable) parallels between Spock and Data, going by family dynamics Deanna Troi is a notable parallel to Spock.

-Half human/half psychic alien species

-Both's non-human parents were specifically famously effective Star Fleet diplomats

-Whether real or perceived seen as lacking in a lot of the qualities prized/specialized in by the non-human parent's culture. This is brought up untactfully by said non-human parent

-Nevertheless the field they went into heavily relies on said trait they allegedly don't have

-So much family drama

-Shenanigans related to betrothals that neither of them goes through with

Which is to say Spock deserved a moment similar to Deanna Troi where she got to storm out of a dinner where her mom was being particularly belligerent and smash a vase on the way out.

[omegasmileyface]

Montana Supreme Court Rules Its Constitution Entirely Protects Trans Citizens In Landmark Ruling

The ruling will have enormous impacts for transgender residents in the state.

HOLY SHIT

[definite-human]

"The Montana court separately declared that transgender people constitute a suspect class under the state's equal protection clause. In legal terms, a suspect class is a group that has historically faced such severe discrimination that any law targeting them must meet the highest level of judicial scrutiny to survive—the same standard applied to laws that discriminate on the basis of race. [...] The practical effect is sweeping: any Montana law that singles out transgender people will now face strict scrutiny, meaning the state must prove the law serves a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve it—a standard that laws almost never survive.

"Because the decision rests entirely on the Montana Constitution, it is insulated from the U.S. Supreme Court. Under the principle of adequate and independent state grounds, the federal Supreme Court cannot review a state court's interpretation of its own constitution, so long as that constitution provides more protection than the federal one. [...] What this means in practice is that Montana's transgender residents now have a constitutional shield completely independent of the Supreme Court of the United State’s decisions."

(emphases mine)

[homemademonsterpants]

This is also a fantastic example of actual journalism, where they give context to the dissenting opinion rather than just paste in their statement. 10/10

The two dissenters were far more hostile toward transgender people. Justice Jim Rice […] devoted multiple pages to a hypothetical about a person who identifies as “trans-aged,” sourcing the concept from Evie Magazine—an alt-right publication that the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as promoting “male supremacist politics of the hard right” and that Media Bias/Fact Check rates as publishing conspiracy theories and pseudoscience—and from a blog post on Care-Net.org, an evangelical anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center network.

[alovelydesolation]

Today's photo silliness, loading two frames of Instax wide into a Graflex film holder to test out my 1931 Graflex RB Series D. One shot turned out a little underexposed, but I blame my poor metering skills.

My next test will be actual film in the studio.

[transhuman-priestess]

Hey: if you live in a small town and you’re miserable there, you need to know that “moving to the city” does not have to mean “New York, Seattle, or Portland”

You can move to Tulsa, Memphis, Louisville, Little Rock, Shreveport, etc.

Idk yall just seem miserable being the only transsexual within 100 miles. Maybe try and change that?

[iamoutofideas]

[transhuman-priestess]

If you wanna be a tar pit like this, that’s your prerogative, but if you want me dead how about you buck up and kill me yourself.

[krystalgazer]

lmfao history isn’t your strong suit and it seems reading comprehension isn’t either. Says a lot about your and what your advice is worth when criticism of your tone-deaf, privileged, harmful and dismissive take is read by you as a death threat. Grow the fuck up idiot and maybe speak to people outside of your upper class spoilt brat friend group

[transhuman-priestess]

You’re making a lot of assumptions about me there

[krystalgazer]

You assumed I wanted to kill you because I made a correlation between a historically remembered and hated tone-deaf quote and your stupid ass post

[transhuman-priestess]

Are you ok

[alovelydesolation]

Whatever you already pay to live where you are, you can find a city where the cost of living is comparable. That doesn't mean the move itself will be free or easy, but we do lots of hard things all the time.

A mid-sized city like Pittsburgh is much better to live in than east bumfuck, the total cost of living is similar (in the cheaper neighborhoods), and there are so many more opportunities for happiness, improved income, and finding community.

Better things are possible.

[txttletale]

some of my favourite ttrpg rules

wisher, theurge, fatalist / GIRL FRAME / triangle agency / paranoia XP / no, yeah, it's just you / wisher, theurge, fatalist

[depsidase]

[alovelydesolation]

Prairie dogs on a cloudy day.

Shot with Pentax K1 mkII and DA* 300/f4 lens.

[everythingnowshow]

what if American Psycho was wet?

[jburneko]

Recently, I saw a documentary about the artist Robert Williams. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that I hadn't come across his work before. Anyway, the documentary opens with him talking about a piece he did about The Piltdown Man. The interviewer responds, "Oh, so you're educating people about The Piltdown Man." Robert Williams responds very pointedly, "No! No! I don't want to educate people about the Piltdown Man. I want to find people who already know about the Piltdown Man and blow their minds!" I was immediately struck by how much RPG designers need to think about this distinction and take it to heart. Too many games seem to think they have to be didactic about their subject matter. That can be as simple as a genre game feeling the need to make itself functional for people who don't know about the genre or as complex as a game trying to "educate" people about anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, the queer experience, whatever. And I feel like that only serves to undermine the potential of the design. If you're constantly designing for the ignorant player at best and the bad faith player at worst, then you never make anything that will really sing in the hands of a true enthusiast. Don't design to educate. Design to blow the minds the educated.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

As recently as 1890, more people in the U.S. died of tuberculosis each year than died of heart disease and cancer COMBINED.

The idea of heart disease and cancer being leading causes of death is younger than Dr Pepper or Maxwell House.

Scientific discovery has utterly transformed the world in which we live, increasing life expectancy and alleviating suffering. It's the greatest success in human history. Failing to share these innovations with all humans is the greatest failure in human history.

[thegaymccoy]

Representation matters.

Happy Star Trek Day!

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

I was at DragonCon one year when Avery Brooks was on a panel, and a Black dude stood up and talked about how the year DS9 came on, he became the sole custodial guardian of his small son, and he was *terrified* and felt helpless, because he hadn’t really had a father himself, and he didn’t really know any Black fathers he particularly wanted to emulate, and no Black single fathers at all.  He talked about how every week he’d put his kid to bed and sit down and watch Deep Space Nine, and think to himself, “Okay, this, I want us to be this kind of father and son,” and how, silly as it might sound, the idea that Ben could be there for Jake, all the time, successfully, and earn his admiration and trust, was the only source he really had of inspiration, the only voice that was telling him he could handle this job. 

I swear to fuck there was a whole auditorium of people in tears by the time he was done, including both him and Brooks.  It was one of the most beautiful moments I ever saw about the sometimes bloodless-sounding term “representation,” and about fandom in general, and I will never forget it.

[quailfence]

[Image description: Twitter thread by Pete Souza Petty (@KendraJames_) that reads as follows:

It’s #StarTrekDay, and I can’t begin to express how much Sisko and DS9 meant to me as a kid. Not gonna try, I’ll just repeat my fave story.

I got into basically every college I applied to, and when it came down to it I was choosing between Oberlin, Pitzer, and I think Occidental.

I was leaning heavily on Pitzer, which seemed like Oberlin with better weather. My parents didn’t want me to go to LA.

(caps) (LOL joke’s on them on Tuesday when I move there anyway, ain’t it?)

Anyway (end caps).

I was scrolling Wikipedia in my dorm room one night trying to look for facts that would convince them to let me go to Pitzer.

I got to the Oberlin page, basically looking for dirt, and scrolled down to the “famous alumni” section and saw Avery Brooks’ name.

I think it was like 10min later I called my parents and said “I’ll be okay with going to Oberlin, Sisko went there, write the check pls.”

My logic was that, as a famous alum, he’d probably come back and maybe l’d get to meet him.

And my logic panned out– Avery Brooks came back twice. Once to do Death of a Salesman. It was amazing.

He worked with the AfAm Studies and Theatre departments, and came back a second time to give a lecture during my senior year.

I met him the first time and cried (A lot) while trying to explain what he and Sisko meant to me.

He said, “I know. This is why I did it– so *you* could watch it.” Then I cried some more.

My favourite Avery Brooks quote is from one of his Oberlin talks: “Brown children must be able to participate in contemporary mythology.” End description.]

@startrekdescribed @a-captions-blog

[theconcealedweapon]