Bullshit from a geek

My thoughts, usually film reviews. Maybe a rant or two.

[aibidil]

Why ‘female-presenting nipples’ matter

When I was 10, my mom made me wear a bra and it felt like a punishment for being different.

When I was 10, I took the bra off when changing for gymnastics and accidentally dropped it in the school hallway. A teacher picked it up and said, “Oh, this must belong to you” and handed it back to me in front of everyone. I quit gymnastics.

When I was 11, I thought maybe the boobs would be okay so long as they didn’t get any bigger than would fit in my hand, so I kept measuring it, but they did.

When I was 12, I started wearing two or three sports bras to smush them down, until one day a classmate said, “Are you wearing two bras?!” while laughing.

When I was 13, a boy told me he wanted to squeeze my boobs “until they popped.”

When I was 14, I got cast in a play as an older character and a classmate told me I got the role because I had boobs.

When I was 17, my mom told me to return a swimsuit because it would be too distracting for my boyfriend’s father.

When I was 21, I got properly fitted for a bra and everyone felt the need to tell me how much better my boobs looked.

When I was 26, I got pregnant and my immediate fear was that my boobs would get bigger.

When I was 28, I got shamed for trying to feed my screaming baby in public without a cover.

When I was 28, people asked me “why are you bothering to use a breastfeeding cover?”

When I was 30, people gave me weird looks that I wasn’t yelling at my kid for putting their hand on my boob.

When I was 31, I avoided going to the beach or pool because I didn’t want to have to deal with boobs in a swimsuit.

When I was 32, I got asked, again, “why don’t you get a breast reduction?”

When I was 33, I watched a 5yo girl get shamed for running around in sweltering heat without a shirt on and had to reprimand a bunch of tween boys who thought it was okay to shame her for doing something they do all the time.

When I was 34, my kid kept patting my breast and saying “Mommy’s squishy breast!!” They will never see me express any shame about tits, because I want them to have a different mindset than I had. Yes, boobs are nice! They’re squishy! They’re fun! That’s the end of that.

I’m 35 and no longer give a fuck. I don’t care anymore. As a teenager my tits were covered in stretch marks. They’ve been engorged with milk. My nipple changed shape with pregnancy. Give it another couple decades and my breasts will probably be all wrinkly. It’s sexual when I’m using it sexually. I don’t fucking care, and I won’t be ashamed anymore. 

Every time a policy or cultural hangup treats people with breasts differently, it fucks us over. 

Tumblr’s new policy makes an active choice to participate in this culture of shame. By classifying “female-presenting nipples” as explicit material, Tumblr has taken a stance that any chest or breast that differs from a male default is worthy of shame and unavoidably sexual. The idea that breasts are shameful and unavoidably sexual is exactly what fucked me up for so much of my life.

Stop shaming people for having bodies. 

[bixgirl1]

*claps until my arms fall off*

[revdkathy]

I finally got around to typing up my beginner’s awfully easy Jumper Pattern.

I knit these in cheap yarn for work because it’s quick and mindless.

[bobtheskutter]

Halloween (2018)

I went to see Halloween yesterday and particularly after that post about “The Circus of Horrors: Psycho Asylum” this morning I had a few thoughts about it. I will try not to say anything too spoiler-y.

I’ve always enjoyed a good horror film and in a lot of ways it was good to see a film that was a throwback to the Slashers we used to get. The powerful women who survive and triumph over the horrors thrown at them by a man is always good to see, the reversal of old horror standards in the final was also fun to see.

What wasn’t quite so good was the throwback in terms of depiction of mental health facilities. Yes, Michael is a evil killer, blah, blah, blah, and that goes back 40 years to the original material. But was the Bedlam like scene with the howling, giggling, inmates and the psychiatrist allowing the goading of a patient in his care really necessary? I also felt the bit unhelpful to have the story more or less rely on the idea that you should hold on to horrible, self destructive trauma for 40 years. I know these things are well worn tropes. I know they’re a regular feature and not just in horror. There are more issues in there but this morning those were the things that stood out in my mind.

[revdkathy]

Circus of Horrors have named their new show “psycho asylum”. I thought we were past this sort of stigma, but apparently not.

[bobtheskutter]

I saw the posters for this up and around Redruth, the show is on just over the road from the recently vacated Mental Health services offices, but it appears to be a national show. But it immediately jumped out as a very inappropriate title.

[bobtheskutter]

Nissan Leaf

We’ve had a second generation Nissan Leaf since the spring. We had been looking at Electric cars for a few years now and after researching the market we decided that the new Leaf had enough range, had a lot of tech we wanted and was big enough for our needs.

We waited for a local dealer to have a test drive model in and had a go. That was enough to tell us we’d found the car for us. We ordered it and not long after we started hearing about this thing called Rapidgate.

What it boiled down to was in order to keep it affordable Nissan had decided to not put any battery heat management hardware on the car, instead opting for software management and without really telling anyone had decided to limit the speed on repeat rapid charging. If you need to fill your battery on a long drive you’d better hope you don’t need to do it more than once to get to your destination or you’ll be taking forever, so we’d heard.

This wasn’t much of a concern, 95% or more day to day driving wouldn’t need a rapid charge and we would work out a way to do longer trips as necessary.

Since we got the car we’ve had a couple of long journeys. The first was 140ish miles each way. Did it with no problem, one rapid charge on the round trip. The second a 200 mile trip each way where the traffic was the thing that slowed us down not than the charging

After this we we confident but we thought we might have a challenge. 400 miles from Cornwall to Hull, around 6 and a half hours of driving time if you could do it without a break. We thought this would take 3 charges and with the added time it might be 10-11 hours. That’s  fine for us as I need time to break, stretch my legs and use the toilets. But when we set off we had the worst conditions you could have asked for, head winds and cross winds, rain and damp.

Running the heating to dry out the windows, the windscreen wipers, the wind, this all used more power and I needed to stop and we pulled in early for a little boost of power after only 70 or so miles. We needed to stop for 5 charges in total, the final one was 15 minutes to just give us the assurance we had enough to get in and a bit more for the next day. It was a long day, just over 12 hours on the road but the weather conditions not the charge speeds were the problem.

The return journey was much better weather, we stopped for 3 charges and to be honest the time charging wasn’t really long enough. We found 45 minutes charging time wasn’t enough time for us, what with queues for the loo and food and drink, we found we rushed through eating in order to make it back to the car by the time the charge ended. Each charge added over 100 miles and it took us pretty much as long as we’d expected for the journey, also thanks to ProPilot the car took the strain off for most of the drive home.

After all we’d heard about Rapidgate and how terrible this made the Leaf we’re glad to say that, for us at least, it’s a problem that has been entirely blown out of proportion and despite what people have said the Nissan Leaf is a fantastic car.

[revdkathy]

My sister asked for mum’s old recipe for green tomato chutney. I’m proud to say it was exactly where I thought it would be, and looked still usable.

Then I ran it through handwriting recognition software. Please do NOT attempt to make this version!

gelau Toneta Coundary 3 lle guem tomatoes u large opples 2 omale cucumbero 3 large anno on sultonas sold tel Demeta 2 cablesperan mustard i ’ s Leaspoonfulo groue ganger I level bespoon of. 1 % wallespoon salt 45 gille venggar dan salins fon Tomelos Slice peel omão gaples, slice pil all the ingreskens Cucumberoe Porng to leave here Hello on the worlde per or for a 63 homo

[jimllpaintit]

Football coming home with a bucket of vindaloo to find his wife in bed with another sport

As requested by Louis Simmons

[jimllpaintit]

‘Kittens. Just a big group of kittens goofing around mate.

They can be playing in and around all sorts of culture references, band T-shirts, discarded placards, whatever you want. In fact - better than that - pick all your favourite things and put them in there, favourite chocolate bar, favourite album, favourite T-shirt, a toy from your childhood…

But kittens. Playing. A fair few of them mucking about.

That’s all.’

A Guy Hamilton

[jimllpaintit]

The Weather Girls gleefully performing their most famous hit “It’s Raining Men" whilst surrounded by a scene of absolute carnage as the bodies of the unfortunate aforementioned men lie dead and dying around them, having inexplicably fallen from the sky. Meanwhile, Michael Fish and Sian Lloyd look on, bewildered.

As requested by Anthony Mitchell

[jimllpaintit]

Tory squat party. Boris has a nosebleed from snorting too much speed, May is drinking special brew and Hunt is burning the Criminal Justice Bill while Farage, in full hunting gear, is calling the police.

As requested by Matt Durstan Tilke

[jimllpaintit]

Dear Jim, Please can you paint a classic Star Trek starship bridge with Stephen Hawking sitting in the Captain’s chair whilst the other positions are occupied by Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, George Washington Carver, Galileo Galilei and Dorothy Hodgkin. They have been reunited in the afterlife to continue improving science for the benefit of all humanity by boldly going where no late genius has gone before.Ray Hamill

[newyorker]

A cartoon by Robert Leighton, from 2014.

[jimllpaintit]

Jim’ll Paint It is five years old today. Kind of hoping I get to do this for at least another five years as I literally have no idea how to do anything else anymore.

To celebrate this momentous day I’ve repainted one of my favourite early pieces ‘Ainsley Harriott, Son of God’ As requested by Stephen Savage Savage Savage

[bobtheskutter]

Oxfam – TheTLS

I really should have learned by now that it is a very bad idea to try to make a nuanced contribution to a topical debate in 280 characters. But still I do it. Yesterday evening, I tweeted this: ‘Of course one can’t condone the (alleged) behaviour of Oxfam staff in Haiti and elsewhere. But I …

[jimllpaintit]

Donald Trump and Piers Morgan having a date in Greggs on Valentine’s Day

As requested by Amy Bee Sting

[bobtheskutter]

Private Eye's Christmas round up

[bobtheskutter]

Disabled unfriendly

@Elf_on_wheels is doing a good job at posting these things on Twitter but I've been considering starting a blog or just randomly posting these things for a while. Trouble is I forget to take pictures or write about it when I get home.

There are so many times I come across things that are supposed to be disabled friendly and accessible that just end up being unhelpful by people who, I hope, aren't being malicious just unaware. For example:

That red cord is supposed to reach almost to the floor in case you should fall you can call for help if you can't get up or if you need help to get off the toilet, and your range of movement is limited, you can pull it without reaching up.

The number of times you see them tied up 'out of the way' like this is astounding. Then there are times when they've been screwed to the wall behind the hand dryer or toilet roll holder, or simply wrapped around pipes or the support arm, so if you pull it from low down it doesn't actually activate.

I see this in so many places it's become more surprising to see it actually in the right position.

I can see if you're the able-bodied cleaners you look at that dangling as an obstruction to doing your job and put it out of the way, but it is designed the way it is to offer a function to vulnerable people who may need extra help.

This may become a more regular thing I post if I remember to take more photos/remember to post the rant that comes to mind at the time.