@justkeepyourheadaboveswim - Tumblr Blog

wishbzne-deactivated20210526

from margaret atwood’s selected poems (1965-1975)

In an age of disappearing prison libraries, jail profiteers provide "free" crapgadget tablets that charge prisoners by the minute to read Project Gutenberg ebooks

The past couple years has seen a rise in prison profiteers who strike deals with state corrections departments to provide “free” tablets to prisoners (these being the flimsiest, cheapest, least reliable hardware imaginable), and then profiting by charging exorbitant sums for prisoners to send emails (selling “digital postage stamps” that have to be affixed to each “page” of email), videoconference with family members, and provide media, charging prisoners for music that they lose every time a prison changes suppliers.

At the same time, these companies lobby prisons to eliminate in-person visits, paper mail, and even libraries in the name of safety, contraband interdiction, and cost-savings. This replaces the prison-administered systems that encourage rehabilitation and smooth re-entry with private systems designed to extract large sums from prisoners’ families. As bad as prison-administered systems are, the private systems can be worse – and when you combine them, you get the worst of both worlds: prisoners who violate the vendors’ terms of service get sent to solitary.

A recent presentation by Katy Ryan from the Appalachian Book Project describes in gruesome detail how this affects in-prison reading. In West Virginia, a company called Global Tel Link has the contract to provide prisoners in ten prisons with “free” tablets, for which they charge $0.05/minute for reading ebooks, primarily drawn from Project Gutenberg, a free online service of volunteer-produced, public domain and CC-licensed ebooks.

Not only does this deprive prisoners of more recent titles, including “how-to guides (carpentry, starting a business, repairing small engines, etc.), contemporary fiction, popular mysteries and sci-fi, African American literature, Native studies, recent autobiographies” – it also makes prison reading fantastically expensive: they estimate that a quick read of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four would clock in at $19.80, while a used paperback would cost the prisoner less than a dollar (and a copy checked out of the prison library would be free).

The prison system receives a 5% kickback on the revenues from this program (GTL also charges prisoners $0.25/min for videoconferencing, $0.25/message for IM, and $0.50 for every photo and $1.00 for every video sent to prisoners). GTL’s contract allows it to raise prices at its sole discretion, and to recoup any shortfalls from its expected minimum profits by billing the state department of corrections.

https://boingboing.net/2019/11/20/captive-markets.html

pariaaaaah

pettycentral

salemwitchtrials-deactivated202

every morning i wake up & get my coffee & i recite in my head this excerpt from ‘invitation,’ by mary oliver: “it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.” & i just say it over & over again until it sticks to my mind for the rest of the day. it is a serious thing. i am alive. i am so lucky. this fresh morning i get the chance to live again & again & again

anxietyproblem

skootdawg

Sperm whale mimics a spinning diver.

gallusrostromegalus

Humans: *encounters Earth’s Largest Carnivore, who would could swallow them whole, probably*

Human: … Spin?

Earth’s largest carnivore, with a brain that weighs almost as much as this naked beach ape*: SPIN!

regaldragonempress

WHAT DO YOU MEAN SPERM WHALES ARE CARNIVORES

I THOUGHT THEY ATE KRILL AND STUFF LIKE OTHER WHALES

gallusrostromegalus

Nope! Sperm whales eat extremely large deep-sea squids, like the Giant and Colossal Squids. They have also been known to opportunistically eat dead whales, sharks, and seals, but not actively hunt them. They got real big teeth for it too:

However, they only have teeth on thier bottom jaw! they have corresponding holes in their top jaw for the teeth to lock into, which makes hanging onto a slippery, boneless squid:

It should be noted that the human here isn’t in particular danger of being eaten on purpose, but an accidental swing of it’s multi-ton head, a clip from the teeth, or being directly in the line of it’s sonar could seriously injure or kill them- Divers that have been in the direct line of echolocation for a sperm whale calf have described being hit with the soundwave like “being kicked by a horse” and some have suffered internal organ damage. Sperm whales, like other large whales, aren’t particularly aggressive towards humans, but they are still very large wild animals who behave in unpredictable ways.

I know that in US waters, it’s illegal to intentionally come within 300 yards of any whale or dolphin, and if one appears closer you should turn off your engine or stop paddling to avoid accidental injury to you or it. This human is doing something dangerous and ill-advised, but it’s still hopeful that we can love something like a 130,000 lb deep-diving, squid-eating Oceanic former ungulate.

extremelyloudgamerkeyboard

Im.sorry I’ve lived my entire life not realizing that echolocation could possibly be felt and I have to come to terms with the fact that whales have sonic attacks

honorthegods

This site is not only full of deliberate disinformation and hoaxes, it’s rife with anti-intellectualism.

I encourage people to research anything that sounds fantastic and totally different than what they were taught - even in my posts.

If you see a blog post with startling information, do the CRAAP Test! (developed by Sarah Blakeslee and her team of librarians at California State University, Chico)

Currency: What is the copyright, publication, or posting date? Does the date matter? Is the information outdated?

Relevance: For what audience or level is the information written (general public, experts/scholars, etc.)?

Authority: Who is the author, creator, or publisher of the source or what organization is responsible for the source? How do you know if the author is an expert on the topic (e.g examine the author’s credentials and/or organizational affiliation)?

Accuracy: What indications do you see that the information is or is not well researched or provides sufficient evidence? What kind of language, imagery and/or tone is used (e.g. emotional, objective, professional, etc.)?

Purpose: Why was this source written (e.g.to inform, teach, entertain, persuade)? How might the author’s affiliation affect the point of view, slant, or potential bias of the source?

More help:

The Ultimate Cheatsheet for Critical Thinking

Judging Source Quality

The Layperson’s Guide to Online Research

Media Bias/Fact Check Use the search feature to find the bias (left, right, center, and in-between) of any news source.

Snopes fact check

How to Spot Fake News from FactCheck.org

What is a “Good” Source? Determining the Validity of Evidence

Fake News and News Bias

alfa-lima-limon

This is what I teach and I’ve mostly given up on trying to do that here because I will never win and there’s always one more horrible innacurate post or long twitter thread just waiting to be reblogged, but we call it the TRAAP test! Don’t fall into the trap!

Look at the Timeliness, Relevance, Accuracy, Authority, and Purpose!

windycitylibrarian

I spend so much time going over this with my own students and it’s so discouraging when one of them comes back with the latest “conspiracy” spouted by some YouTuber.

sirfrogsworth

(Sound is very much required on this one.)

Sometimes food is so darn tasty you gotta sing its praises.

AWOOOOO!

ʷᵒᵒ

burning-mind

@ramblingmillennial

obeekris

Girls hit ya hallelujah!

apoemaday

The Applicant

by Sylvia Plath

First, are you our sort of a person? Do you wear A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch, A brace or a hook, Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch, Stitches to show something’s missing? No, no? Then How can we give you a thing? Stop crying. Open your hand. Empty? Empty. Here is a hand To fill it and willing To bring teacups and roll away headaches And do whatever you tell it. Will you marry it? It is guaranteed To thumb shut your eyes at the end And dissolve of sorrow. We make new stock from the salt. I notice you are stark naked. How about this suit— Black and stiff, but not a bad fit. Will you marry it? It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof Against fire and bombs through the roof. Believe me, they’ll bury you in it. Now your head, excuse me, is empty. I have the ticket for that. Come here, sweetie, out of the closet. Well, what do you think of that? Naked as paper to start But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver, In fifty, gold. A living doll, everywhere you look. It can sew, it can cook, It can talk, talk, talk. It works, there is nothing wrong with it. You have a hole, it’s a poultice. You have an eye, it’s an image. My boy, it’s your last resort. Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.