Essays on stuff

Sometimes I do media analysis but not often. I also craft and maybe sometimes share my creations.

[catilinas]

i love shipping magazines and i especially love them when they sound like they were written by a mildly aggravated cargo ship

[navigatorsnorth]

Phenomenal spare wheel cover I walked past the other day

[devilleworship]

saw this on Insta and the idea that people who are anti-AI are just using it anyway like... willing to give it up? I ACTIVELY AVOID THAT SHIT BUD! WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT?

ALSO

It's not as if this shit has been around SOOO LONG. We all existed JUST FINE before this shit became THE THING someone decided to shove in our face like...

[sailermoon]

this is how new yorkers @ mamdani

[sailermoon]

[excitedrainbow]

IT’S LITERALLY HAPPENING LMAOOOOO

[swimmingblue]

and the mayor's office is probably really glad that this is happening. Because it lets them fix the sort of small problems that effect people on a day-to-day basis, that can be hard to report, but can potentially lead to bigger problems down the line. Plus it's good PR.

[vixvigil]

it’s never a normal temperature anymore it’s always some fucking bullshit

[rosslynpaladin]

I need you young people to know it was almost never this hot when I was a child. Millennials and Gen Xers are all nostalgic and excited about summer because it was about ten to twenty degrees cooler to experience it back then!

I cannot express to you how FAST it has gone. I grew up in a world that does not exist now. We're starting on the path to reverse it, globally. You might not know how much solar has EXPLODED in the last decade or two. It's gone from a side thing, a weirdo novelty that was just Not Viable... to whole countries investing in infrastructure. but we have to keep fighting big oil and fascism everywhere we can in order to keep on this road to a new better less scorching burning earth.

But any time you wonder wtf the weather is doing- THIS IS NOT NORMAL, NO. THIS IS NOT WHAT IT WAS EVEN TWENTY YEARS AGO.

[should-be-sleeping]

In the 90's the record breaking summer temp where I lived was like 85 degrees btw. It's been over 100 for a week straight now.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Where I live, the deciduous trees have been losing their leaves in winter instead of autumn for several years now and the first time I got swooped by nesting birds this year was July 15th, the actual dead middle of winter. They're supposed to herald the spring.

[nipple-brains]

Where I am every spring plant is blooming and a lot of animals are migrating back that wouldn't be yet. A guy at the lake pointed out one of the migrating duck species was back early recently and we both were kinda upset about it instead of hyped

[feathery-dreamer]

I haven't seen snow since I was in my mid-teens I think, neither in Turkiye nor in France. At least, nothing that actually stuck more than half a day.

Contrast that with several weeks of snow that I knew in my childhood. It was sometimes enough that workplaces and schools had to close. And nowhere as many heatwaves, and nowhere as long, as the past couple years.

Now we're lucky to even see a flake in winter, even up in the heights (winter sports resorts had to cancel vacations). Now the heat waves often begin in april-may and each can last an entire week.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

it's healthy for academics to have professional feuds. enrichment activity

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

Holy shit. "The demese ef the Ne'enderthels: Wes lengege a fecter?" published in the Science magazine

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

short but sweet

[gigglepuffpixie]

[what-even-is-thiss]

The amount of slavery in Ancient Rome was legitimately terrifying tbh

[what-even-is-thiss]

Y’all know that I’m into ancient Roman history and I do a lot of research on it but even though I should be used to it by now sometimes I read an anecdote about how an individual slave was treated and I’m hit with the realization that like a third of the population was living like that and I just need to put my head in my hands for a second

[what-even-is-thiss]

Emperor Hadrian randomly stabbed a slave in the eye in a fit of rage and he was supposedly unusually sympathetic to slaves.

There’s other instances of people randomly punching slaves that they didn’t even know because they got in their way or something. This was just normal behavior.

And slaves didn’t rebel en masse because if even one slave committed an act of violent rebellion it was common practice to kill every slave and former slave in the household.

People only took notice for posterity when these mass executions got into the hundreds of people. One of the few recorded for the history books is of over 400 people being killed because one guy stabbed his enslaver.

Like how many people throughout history were beaten to death because some rich asshole was angry and there was no legal or social consequences for doing so? We don’t know.

[what-even-is-thiss]

When you study ancient history you’re reminded that slavery has never once been kind or justified. It just takes on different forms of evil in every time and place that it infects.

[mclennonyaoi]

reading this deposition that just got dropped where someone sued musk and ohhhh my god it is this funniest thing ever . i can see why his lawyer tried to keep this confidential . they’re both maybe the biggest idiots . this is like ace attorney

[mclennonyaoi]

Elon Musk Didn’t Want His Latest Deposition Released. Here It Is.

Musk is being sued for falsely suggesting a 22-year-old Jewish man was part of a neo-Nazi brawl.

Elon Musk Deposed In Lawsuit For Falsely Linking Jewish Man To Neo-Nazi Brawl

Elon Musk was deposed in a recent lawsuit for falsely linking a 22-year-old Jewish man to a neo-Nazi brawl. Musk, who attempted to keep the

PLEASE read this

[mclennonyaoi]

[mclennonyaoi]

[mclennonyaoi]

[mclennonyaoi]

bankston is my HERO he’s tearing these people apart

[mclennonyaoi]

damn

[mclennonyaoi]

HE LEFT

[mclennonyaoi]

????

[mclennonyaoi]

oh my god

[mclennonyaoi]

KILL HIM

[mclennonyaoi]

he is DONE.

[mclennonyaoi]

HELP ME .

[mclennonyaoi]

wow. ok.

[mclennonyaoi]

[mclennonyaoi]

genuinely first two pages he says that he thinks ben’s lawyer is the one who is actually suing him and admits he has no clue what the lawsuit is about .

[mclennonyaoi]

doing a reread now this is so cunty

[mclennonyaoi]

goddamn .

[cryptotheism]

fun fact: the Mr. Bankston here is Mark Bankston, the same lawyer who absolutely ruined Alex Jones during the Sandy Hook trial.

[ex-libris-craux]

how in the fuck did the muskrat's attorney pass the bar

[ruffboi-mags]

Mark Bankston is gonna make me fucking SWOON.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

I don't think Mark can ever top "INDEED, MR. JONES, INDEED" and "AND THAT IS HOW I KNOW YOU LIED TO ME" from the first Sandy Hook trial in Texas (not to be confused with Chris Mattei, the attorney in the Connecticut trial), but this part

MR. SPIRO: Do you give these lectures at all of your depositions? MR. BANKSTON: I do, and you can watch them.

is ESPECIALLY hilarious to me having listened to multiple depositions Mark has had to take in the Sandy Hook case, where he has needed to lecture EVERY. SINGLE. ATTORNEY. at some point in the case about how they're violating Texas Rule XYZ, because they all, to a one, did something seriously ethically questionable during the deposition.

like, YOU CAN WATCH/LISTEN TO HIS DEPOS. HE DOES HAVE TO GIVE THOSE LECTURES EVERY TIME. IT'S NOT EVEN A JOKE.

[aristoteliancomplacency]

If you want to listen to the deposition highlights in the Texas case with commentary from the world expert on Alex Jones, listen to the episodes of the podcast Knowledge Fight labelled ‘formulaic objections’ (I think there are about 16 in total). Highly recommend.

[64mpg]

u can just do whatever at any age all of the time nobody cares except teenagers

[64mpg]

teenager will be like ur 40 with a hobby ? 💀 that’s sad <- nobody else thinks this way though they are just going through some stuff

[fiercestpurpose]

There’s a quality that certain books/movies/TV shows have that leads me to say, “Yeah, I can see people making fanfiction of that.” It’s something to do, I think, with how tight the story is, how much feels open-ended or like it could be elaborated on.

Something like Breaking Bad, for example, has low squiggability (that’s what I’m calling this quality). It’s tightly written, the characters are consistent, there’s little left to interpolate or extrapolate. Obviously, people DO write fanfic of Breaking Bad, but it still has a low squiggability score. Whereas something like Supernatural has a high squiggability score. Fantasy and science fiction often have high squiggability scores. This suggests squiggability could also be related to worldbuilding and potential for people to borrow a premise or setting.

And sometimes you’ll read or watch something and you’ll say, “Ah, low squiggability,” and then you’ll open tumblr and find out that everyone else seem to think its squiggability was very high indeed.

[reggiemess]

Profanity filters on single-player games are just so... incredibly performative. They don't 'protect' the player from seeing the word (you have to type it in order to activate the filter), the only thing they do is scold the player.

My favorite solution to people who get offended at the things they themselves typed is a disclaimer on a puzzle page that said "If you type profanity you will see it."

[reggiemess]

Out: Can you pet the dog?

In: Can you name yourself Fuckface McShitass?

[reggiemess]

It's really funny and jarring when you encounter a profanity filter in a single-player m-rated grown-up game for adults, but I don't think they even make sense in kid's games. If anything I think "If you tell the computer to call you FuckNugget it will do that" is exactly the sort of obvious, low-stakes 'actions have consequences' lesson that's perfect for kids.

[reggiemess]

"This impacts nobody but yourself, and even then it does not alter gameplay or the intended experience, however we cannot allow it and you need to know we disapprove of offensive language. Anyway have fun in Gorequest 4: The Tittening."

[mtf-the-gathering]

more games could benefit from brutal legend's profanity filter setting I think

[sailatina3]

I wish it were more common to have "bilingual" stories. By that i mean stories where it's important that 2 or more languages are spoken throughout. There isn't any translation, there's just multiple languages spoken by the characters. I understand why this is seldom done considering how heavily limiting it is to the number of people who can actually read or watch it. But idk I think the world would be better off with some stories like that.

[sailatina3]

Many of us live bilingual lives. What those lamguages are, what they mean to us, the historical and political state of those languages, are very very important! So at some point I think it would be nice to write something that is simultaneously English and spanish, and there would be a pretty sizable number of people who could read that.

A story like this would probably be impossible to translate into a third language though, for obvious reasons. Which i feel conflicted about, because I on one hand believe that all art should be in all languages and have as many accessibility options as possible. But I also think this specific type of story *needs* to be in those languages and removing one or swapping them would miss much of the point. Hrmmm...

[headspace-hotel]

Translate it into a third AND fourth language

[headspace-hotel]

Actually reading something like this even as a monolingual person would be very cool because you would have to figure things out yourself. And you would pick up some of the language possibly.

[100493503004422]

refusal to participate due to self consciousness is actually more embarrassing than participating. it took me a very long time to figure that out. abject fear of embarrassment is actually causing you to do things that are more embarrassing than what you fear. you are gonna be embarrassed anyway. let go and be free

[asteroidtroglodyte]

You can’t Abstain your way to a Better World.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

The Burger still gets made, even if you go Vegan. If you don’t buy it, it just winds up in the trash. If you want to do something meaningful about waste, you need legislation: It must become a crime to waste food in those ways.

If you care about Animal Cruelty in Factory Farms, you need to get legislation passed. It must become a crime to mistreat animals in those ways, and when malfeasances occurs, the onus of responsibility for those crimes must fall upon wealthy shoulders. That, also, requires legislation. It requires regulations, and regulators.

The largest source of Microplastics is wear and tear on automobile tires. It doesn’t matter what brand of shampoo you buy. It doesn’t matter which company you support with your dollar. The issue of Public Transit is too large-scale to be handled at anything less than the municipal level.

It’s not enough to just not participate in society

If you want the world to Change, you must leverage the mechanisms of political power.

You need Government.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

STOP PROPOSING INDIVIDUAL SOLUTIONS TO COLLECTIVE PROBLEMS

[chronicallyhomoerotic]

this is a poem. To me.

[apolladay]

Which notorious English class short story fucked you up the most?

* I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

*The King in Yellow

* The Lottery

* The Masque of the Red Death

* The Monkey’s Paw

* The Most Dangerous Game

* The Nameless City

* The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

* There Will Come Soft Rains

*The Yellow Wallpaper

* The Veldt

* “you think those were fucked up? What about [X]!”

Which notorious English class short story fucked you up the most?

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

The King in Yellow

The Lottery

The Masque of the Red Death

The Monkey’s Paw

The Most Dangerous Game

The Nameless City

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

There Will Come Soft Rains

The Yellow Wallpaper

The Veldt

“you think those were fucked up? What about [X]!”

Voting ended onApr 30

[it-grrl]

Okay I have things I should be seeing to but I couldn't help myself. In case you, like me, have not read all of these stories and would like to be amongst the lucky 10,000 today:

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers*

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson**

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard O'Connell

The Nameless City by HP Lovecraft

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K LeGuin

There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury

Honorable Mention from the comments/reblogs:

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury

*note: this is actually a collection of short stories and clocks in at about 72k words

**Originally published in the New Yorker in 1948; interestingly, the New Yorker still has this story archived on their website BEHIND A PAYWALL. CAN YOU IMAGINE.

[torstherapy]

[tinsnip]

Per @spoonstrek