The blog of Erik A. G. '59

Boomer | he/him/his/his/himself | raised in California, now living in Iowa | I seem to post about gender issues and politics in cartoon and fandom meme form, with occasional raccoons, pangolins, and other charismatic animals. Also see my sideblogs at erik-even-gayer and erik-even-wordier.

[femmenietzsche]

Maybe this is a dumb way of thinking about it, but the Andromeda Galaxy is about 2.5 million light years away, while the edge of the observable universe is about 46.5 billion light years away, which is only 18,600 times further. That's a lot obviously, and it makes a bigger difference when considering the volume of a sphere, but in cosmic terms one thing being only 20k times further away than another is way more graspable than a lot of the numbers you have to work with. (And while obviously Andromeda itself is ungraspably far away, relative to the size of the Milky Way it's not that far either.)

[femmenietzsche]

I guess the alternate way of looking at this is that in terms of like the factors of ten scale of the universe, most of the empty (macroscopic) space exists between stars rather than at the largest scales

[argumate]

does that suggest that if you can navigate the galaxy, getting to another galaxy isn't such a stretch? but navigating the galaxy is already crazy hard.

[ralfmaximus]

All those observable galaxies might not be there anymore. They could have disappeared a few billion years back and we'd never know.

Heck, Alpha Centauri could have exploded four years ago and we'd not know it yet.

[argumate]

dammit, the good real estate is slipping over the event horizon before we can get there!

[argumate]

wild that "milli vanilli news" is a perfectly valid query in 2026, even more wild that the surviving member of the duo and the session musicians who actually recorded the songs have each independently stated that they don't want to be associated with a Trump event, I mean damn.

[noknowshame]

people in fiction are always making plans like "how about tuesday?" and then leaving without elaborating. what time? where? do you even have each other's numbers? deeply stressful

[erikag59]

[gwydionmisha]

Judge stops Kansas law restricting transgender youth health care

A judge appointed by Gov. Laura Kelly said Kansas likely violated parental rights by restricting gender-affirming care for trans minors.

[vaspider]

Kansas Judge Eviscerates Anti-Trans "Experts" Jamie Reed, Chloe Cole, James Cantor; Blocks Care Ban

The judge found 349 individual facts supported the continued provision of gender-affirming care.

Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach brought forward a litany of anti-trans witnesses familiar from litigation defending these bans. Among them was James Cantor, a Toronto psychologist who has built a career testifying for states defending care bans despite no clinical experience treating transgender minors—and who was once quietly dropped from a Florida Board of Medicine hearing after it emerged he had served on the advisory council of the Prostasia Foundation, a group that has worked to destigmatize pedophilia. Folsom wrote that Cantor "has not conducted any original scientific research on the efficacy or safety of gender dysphoria treatments," and noted he is not licensed to treat anyone under 16 and has never diagnosed a minor with gender dysphoria. [...] "The Court gives Dr. Cantor's testimony little weight," Folsom concluded. The judge turned next to Farr Curlin, a Duke University doctor and theologian who was an author of the Trump administration's HHS report on pediatric gender dysphoria ... By his own admission, Folsom noted, Curlin's views are "radically counter to current medical orthodoxy." The judge found his opinions "appear motivated by his personal views as opposed to a methodology applicable in the field of medical ethics," and gave his testimony "little-to-no weight." ...

And then there was Jamie Reed, the self-styled "whistleblower" who built a national profile on lurid, largely unsubstantiated accusations against a St. Louis gender clinic and who has gone on Fox News to describe being transgender as a delusion. Reed also did not testify and could not be cross-examined. Folsom gave her affidavit "little weight,” and had scathing remarks towards her lack of expertise: “The Court gives thus Jamie Reed’s affidavit little weight, given that she is not a medical provider or mental-health professional. In addition, her affidavit primarily addresses her experiences with a clinic operating outside of Kansas—thus, it does not rebut or refute the credible, uncontroverted testimony about clinical practice within the state of Kansas,” read the order.

This decision is 117 pages long, and if you want to actually feel good about something a judge has had to say recently about trans rights, this is legitimately a good read. (I understand that some people do not read legal decisions for fun. You should still try reading this one. It's really good.)

Given how thoroughly and completely he eviscerates the supposed qualifications and relevance of the same tired grievance actors that the right totes from case to case like a basket of moldy oranges, I hope that this decision will not only act as an example for future judges, but save them a bunch of work, because they don't have to then go do all of the writing themselves on how much these people suck, they can just cite this decision.

[titleknown]

Times That Copyright Expansion Has Historically Fucked Over Artists On An Institutional Level:

Sampling rights becoming prohibitively expensive to use by small artists

Musicians being forced to sign over sampling rights to their record company, making any benefits they would hypothetically gain moot.

The Digital Milennium Copyright Act leading to the vidmaker-stomping nightmare that is ContentID

The DMCA leading to making it harder than ever to preserve media due to the way it prohibits tinkering with any locks the megacorps put on it, meaning it's way easier for artists' hard work to end up vaulted and lost.

The way basic chord progressions and musical styles have become copyrightable thanks to various lawsuits by the Marvin Gaye estate

The fact that the artists of the past used to be able to remix; adapt and iterate on art made within 56 years of them, likely created in their lifetimes, and now artists can only do those things with art produced nearly a century ago by people long dead.

New and independent artists being crowded out of the market by megacorp-owned IPs that would be public domain (and thusly convey less of an overwhelming advantage-via-marquee-value to megacorps) if the US had its pre-1976 copyright laws.

Times That Copyright Expansion Has Actually Materially Helped Artists On An Institutional Level:

????????

[carolxdanvers]

Times that Copyright Expansion Resulted In Something Kinda Funny:

When Metallica did a twitch concert and got a copyright strike on their own music as a direct result of their lobbying for copyright expansion

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn, Mint-in-Box, Graded 9.5 (Certificate of Authenticity Included), I Know What I Have

[erikag59]

We can bring Hemingway into the 21st century in an entirely different direction too:

For sale: gender reveal banner, never used

[victusinveritas]

Found on Friendly Atheist on Facebook:

The Pentagon has AGAIN updated its list after complaints from Mormons.

But this list is still a problem.

It separates non-denominational Christians from evangelicals.

It lumps together atheists and “Nones” who believe in a higher power.

It combines a BUNCH of smaller religions into “Other.”

It lumps together progressive Baptists with conservative Southern Baptists.

It combines all Muslims in one group.

The government run by Christian Nationalists has, as usual, taken something that wasn’t broken and made everything worse.

The 2017 list was better. This is just ignorant.

https://x.com/DOWResponse/status/2064015222621221315

[my-dailydreams]

[meirmakesstuff]

A guy at the gym just looked around, realized he was lifting the same weight as a "girl" in a wheelchair, pushed his weight up two notches, screamed once, and left.

[meirmakesstuff]

Like,

[meirmakesstuff]

This could have been avoided by keeping your eyes on your own workout,

This could have been avoided by realizing not all disabilities make people weaker--in fact, the opposite,

This could have been avoided by just being normal about things, man, I don't know what to tell you

[meirmakesstuff]

My wife (they/them) is the wheelchair user in this scenario. I was on standby because sometimes they lift so much weight they start to tip over.

[scunthotter]

People who are making posts telling us what is happening over on threads, twitter, and Instagram are like war correspondents sending us reports from the front.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Meanwhile in Denmark: My mom knitted a hat for my cat

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

The face of a woman who isn't disappointed that her only grandchild is a cat

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Just one day later she sends me this... My cat in different homemade hat. The woman is unstoppable!!!

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Taking over the world... One silly hat at a time...

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

The source of her power:

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

The most delicious little strawbebby...

[maemaybe]

I don't know who my intended audience is here, so whoever needs to hear this, I am begging you to learn to participate in conversations that are about things you aren't interested in.

Part of socializing and having friends is being a good listener even when you don't actually give a shit about the subject.

Your are hurting other people's feelings when you bluntly respond with "Anyway..." and then change the topic.

It can not always be about your preferred topic.

You are being rude. Yes, even if you are neurodivergent. You can be both autistic and rude.

[eel-slap]

If you don't like a browser's AI mode, a good way to get around it is including profanity in your question. If you're using Google, including a "fuck" or "fucking" in your query immediately puts you in normal search mode rather than AI mode

[originalleftist]

Average fantasy author writes one timeless classic factoid is actually a statistical error.

Sir Terry Pratchett, who created Discworld and wrote over 40 timeless classics, is a statistical outlier and should not have been counted.

[sizzlingcandyjellyfishhhhhh]

no revenge because I forgot what you did #memoryloss

[sumikatt]

I think people should just be fine with disliking something without calling it slop or moralizing about it you don’t need to have some noble reason to say “i don’t like this”