I'm just a semi-abled queer lady born in the late 1900s. I reblog from a lot of people mostly about social issues and injustice. Sometimes I reblog because I stumble across art, music or writing that I like and sometimes I just find something cool or amusing.
[Video description: a man holding a small chocolate box is wearing a orange plaid shirt, he is mostly bald but has a beard and small amount of hair on his head. The man also has tattoos on his arms.
Man: you know, momma always said having kids was like a box of chocolates
You never know what your gonna get
(the man opens the box and pulls out a small note with the word pansexual written on it)
Man: thats a good one!
(pulls out note with bisexual written on it)
Man: i like that one too!
(pulls out another note with asexual on it)
Man: thats a good one!
(pulls out card with gender fluid on it)
Man: yes!
(pulls out card with non binary on it)
Man: oh, yes!
(pulls out card with trans gender on it)
Man: definitely!!
(pulls out card with straight on it)
Man: thats a good one
(pulls out card with gay on it)
Man: i like that one!
(pulls out card with lesbian on it)
Man: and i like this one too!
There isn’t anything in this box that i dont like!
The video ends and is credited to princess dad @/ourdadnow on tik tok
The rule could have heavy impacts towards trans people across society.
Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"
The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.
Importantly, the gender ideology prohibition has no age limitation—hospitals could be targeted not just for providing care to minors but for providing gender-affirming care to adults, because prescribing hormone therapy to a transgender patient of any age could be deemed promoting the belief that "sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic."
This is all very bad and horrible, but I want to be clear that it’s worse and more sweeping than just eliminating trans research.
This torches everything. And I do mean everything.
A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):
ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives
allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason
preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies
requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.
What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.
Please, if you only ever write one public comment, this is the one to do.
Bringing back this guide to writing an effective public comment. This gives you the basics you need to know, what you need to include, a basic outline you can follow, etc.
Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:
"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"
But also, if possible, don't stop at writing a comment. Don't stop at calling your representatives. You should ideally be talking to people in your community about this and organizing resistance on-the-ground; there is a good chance people are already doing that even if you aren't hearing about it.
Some added 101-level context from someone (me) who’s worked in federal grantmaking for 20 years and is literally certified on this document - this is a document that governs all federal grantmaking. It’s been around for over a decade and is a mega-document that combine multiple previous smaller documents that have been around for ages. It is updated every few years and generally the updates are minor - a notable change in the previous update was raising the small procurement threshold from $10,000 to $15,000 for example. Deeply dry boring minutiae that no one outside of federal grantmakers need concern themselves with. It was also federal GUIDELINES, which means there was flexibility.
This year’s is different. They are now federal REQUIREMENTS, which means there’s no flexibility. As was said previously, the 400 pages are not singularly devoted to being absolute shitheads to trans people. Theres a lot of stuff in there, some of which is the standard dry boring grants stuff, some of which is the horrible ideological warfare outlined above.
This document is issued by the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which is currently lead by fucking Russell Vought, the principal architect of Project 2025. This is how they’re going to implement all the horrible shit in there that wasn’t covered by Executive Order. Russell Vought is actively coming for my job, my marriage, and my kid, and most of my friends lost their jobs last year because of him. He is the fucking arch villain behind the heinous shit the current regime is doing.
So yes, please comment. You don’t have to read all 400 pages before doing so, it’s dry and dense as fuck, but I thought this information might be helpful. Also, while there is a public comment period, this isn’t voted on by Congress. The OMB just fucking issues it. Pressuring your elected officials into publicly saying “hey what the fuck are you doing here” is good, though.
Please note the comment period is open through JULY 13th, not JUNE 13th. I saw a lot of relogs yesterday saying "last day!" and I just want to say it is very much not too late.
As of today, 7/8/26, we have five days for public commentary on this to go through. I am begging y'all: if you care about independent science in the country that produces the most global science funding in the world, please leave a comment.
For all of the northerners that stood up for Texas during our freeze and said, "Don't make fun of them, they've never dealt with this before. Their infrastructure isn't made for snow and freezing."
This one is for you.
Where I live 108°F with 80% humidity with no wind is normal.
Pacific North West is dealing historic best waves 35-40°C or 95-105°F.
First of all. Don't make fun of them for bitching about the heat. Just like Texas isn't built for a freeze and our pipes burst, Pacific North West isn't built for heat and a lot of their homes don't have AC.
If you live somewhere with a high humidity like 80+ HUMIDITY IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. The "humidity makes it feel cooler" is a lie once it gets beyond a point.
If you live somewhere with a lower humidity, misters are nice to cool off outside.
Once you get over 90°F (32°C) a fan will not help you. It's just pushing around hot air. (I mean if you can't afford a small AC unit because they're expensive as hell, by all means a fan is better than nothing).
Window AC units will let mosquitoes or other small bugs in. Sucks, but that's life.
Now is not the time to me modest. If you have to cover for religious reasons, by all means. If you don't, I've seen people wear short shorts and a swim top. It's not trashy if it keeps you from getting heat stroke.
If you do have to cover up for religious reasons, look for elephant pants or something similar. They're made with a breathable material.
Shade is better than no shade, but that shit it just diet sun after some point. Don't think shade will save you from heat stroke.
I know the "drink your water" is a fun meme now, but if you're sweating excessively you need electrolytes. Drink Gatorade, Powerade, or Pedialite PLEASE. I don't care if you're fucking sitting in one spot all day. That shit WILL save you from heat stroke.
Most importantly. RESEARCH THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEAT STROKE AND HEAT EXHAUSTION PLEASE!
If you're diabetic and can't drink Gatorade, mix water, fruit juice, and either lite salt or pink salt
If you can afford it, cover windows with thick curtains to insulate the house
If you have tile floors, lay on them with skin to tile contact. If you don't, laying your head on cool counters works too.
If the temperature where you're at is hotter than your body temperature, don't wear heat wicking clothing. Moisture wicking is safe though.
Check your medication labels. Many make you more susceptible to sun and heat
-Room temperature water will get into your body faster. This is something I learned doing marching band in high summer in Georgia, and it saved all of our asses. Sip it, don't gulp it, especially if you're getting into the red; same goes for whatever fluid you're drinking. And just in general drink during the day.
-If you are moving from an air conditioned space to an un-air conditioned space, if at all possible try to make the shift gradual. When my dad and I were working outside and in un-ac houses a few years ago, he'd turn the air down to low in the truck about ten-fifteen minutes before we got where we were going. This way your body doesn't go from low low temps to high temps. S'bad for you.
-If you can, keep your lights off during the day. Light bulbs may not generate a lot of heat, but the difference is noticeable when it gets hot enough. I literally only turn my bedroom light on in the evening when it gets too dark.
Don't be afraid to just like... pour water on yourself if you need to. The evaporation will cool you off.
Put your hand to the cement for 15 seconds. If you can't handle the heat, it'll burn your dog's paws. Don't let them walk on it.
Dogs with flat faces are more prone to heat stroke. Don't leave them out unsupervised.
Frozen fruit is delicious in water.
Wet/Cold hat/handkerchief on your head/neck will help you stay cool.
Pickle juice is great for electrolytes! You can even make pickle juice Popsicles!
Heat exhaustion is more, "drink water and get you cooled off." Heat stroke is more "Oh my god call 911."
Image Description provided by @loveize
[Image description: an infographic showing the difference between heat exhaustion and heat stroke. The graphic is labeled "Heat Dangers: First Warning." Signs of heat exhaustion: faint or dizzy, excessive sweating, cool, pale, clammy skin, rapid, weak pulse, muscle cramps. If you think you or someone else may be experiencing heat exhaustion, get to a cool, air-conditioned place, drink water if conscious, and take a cool shower or use cold compress. Signs of heat stroke: throbbing headache, no sweating, red, hot, dry skin, rapid, strong pulse, may lose consciousness. If you think you or someone else may be experiencing heat stroke, call 911. End description]
As someone who has had both heat stroke and heat exhaustion before (there are a lot of factors I won’t elaborate on,) here are some other things that may help:
Stay out of the sun! It’s that simple.
If you have to be out in the sun, wear sunscreen. Don’t get skin cancer
If you are still prone to sunburn after putting on sunscreen, or can’t wear it because of a skin reaction, modest clothes can help. Clothes that are light colored and lightweight can still be appropriate for hot days. Look for linen, thin cotton, or moisture wicking athletic wear.
If you have thin hair, your scalp will burn. Sunscreen can be applied to your scalp, but a hat will be more effective.
If you are overheating, try placing a cool, damp cloth over your head or the back of your neck. (I don’t know the science behind this one, just that it helps.)
If you are prone to overheating and need to leave the house, have someone accompany you or stay in populated areas in case you need medical attention.
Even if you are drinking electrolytes, you still need to drink water. Water is for before you sweat, electrolytes are for during and after.
Cut down on consuming dairy products when you’re going to be outside. That glass of milk in the morning will not sit well on your stomach. You may experience discomfort and nausea, or even vomiting.
Raw fruits and vegetables hold a lot of natural water. If you have a hard time drinking enough water try adding cucumber, tomatoes, watermelon, or any other vegetable to help
If you are diabetic, the way your body reacts to high temperatures can affect your blood sugar. I’m not diabetic and don’t know the specifics but I know it’s a possibility to look into
I’ve lived in the southern United States for nearly my entire life and I still complain about the heat every summer. It’s ok to complain about something unpleasant, especially if you’re not used to it. For anyone experiencing a heatwave like this for the first time, all I have to say is be safe, and I love you. <3
I'm not responding to person above. I'm responding to myself.
This post I wrote a few years ago is going around again because it's summer and every time it goes around people correct me on 2 things.
1) Portable AC units don't give off CO2 exhaust. My mom's friend was using one and they're dog chewed through the exhaust output and their animals died. But when I was trying to understand why this happened, I wasn't given a full explanation beyond "because it's the exhaust output". So my logic was "that's a machine. Exhaust means Co2. Must be Co2 exhaust". I've since had to use one myself. The issue is the exhaust is a hot air exhaust. So it just gets hot as shit if the hot air isn't leaving the house/room. That's my mistake.
2) Diabetic people can have sugary drinks. And fruit juice has sugar in it. (I mean by fruit juice I meant 100% lemon juice or 100% cranberry juice or something). Again I don't even know how I fucked this one up. I had a roommate with type 1 diabetes and I shared muffins with her! When I wrote it I remember watching this story of a Diabetic YouTuber that was like talking about how when she was a kid the moms brought all the other kids cookies except her because she was Diabetic like over a decade ago. But she didn't explain "they just assumed I couldn't have any! How rude!" So my brain was like "They didn't even try to accommodate me! How rude!" Which was actually a really dumb jump in logic because my roommate (also my best friend in college) explained to me "Oh I can totally have some. I just need to insulin for the sugar!" (Because I wanted to make sure it wasn't rude for me to offer stuff.) So... dunno. I had a brain fart. My mistake.
"So why don't you turn off reblogs on this?" I hear people ask when I correct myself. Well because aside from those two mistakes, I've also heard a lot of people say "Thanks to this post, I realized the signs of heat stroke and was able to get help!" So umm... I'm ignorant sometimes. Please forgive me. But do try to stay safe in the heat.
In case anyone finds it helpful because mobility aids are horrifically expensive and inaccessible…
And for those people who have access to mobility devices but might benefit from a second chair they can abuse without risking expensive damage…
Erik Kondo has made a website, Open Source Innovations, that details plans for DIY wheelchairs. These wheelchairs can be made from common materials like wood, plastic, and pvc. They are lightweight and can be custom fit to the user allowing from the same degree of movement you would get from a custom chair. And they are durable and easily repairable. (he has been stress testing his latest design by dropping it down stairs, dropping it out of a car, launching it across a driveway, and throwing it off a deck). Its 12lbs and I think he said its was in the $200 ish range for parts.
He also is working on cheap, open source, accessible designs for beach chairs, off road chairs, motorized attachments (think smart drive), and so on. Plus he skateboards in his wheelchair. Cool dude, helpful info, pass it on.
It's incredibly sad people have to resort to this, but it's a damn good resource. Use it. Spread awareness. Maybe one day people with physical disabilities won't need DIYs like this. But until then, reblog and share.
It's Juneteenth yall. And I'm not letting this day go unmarked.
Black people fight for everybody. We stand in solidarity with women, lgbt people, poor people all over the world of every skin color and background. Every religion and nationality.
Today, stand with us. Be with us. Tell a black person you love them. Hug a black person (with consent). Ask that hot black girl out today. Make a black person smile. Black lives matter to everybody and you matter to us.
Stand with us on Juneteenth like we stand with you all year round, and I hope a happy Pride month continues for all of us
Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.
have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.
and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.
black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.
if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.
This is Juneteenth.
white people CAN interact with this post. share it, spread it.
⚔️ BROADS AND BROADSWORDS VOLUME 3 PREORDERS ARE NOW OPEN! ⚔️
Broads and Broadswords is a charity zine and a celebration of varied women, varied genders, and the swords and blades that love them. This zine collects 80 pages of original color illustrations and comics made entirely by 60+ independent artists-- and no AI at all--in a perfect bound book, available in both digital and print format. All proceeds from the Broads and Broadswords zine will be split between the Transgender Law Center and Point of Pride.
By reblogging this post you are also a part of our GIVEAWAY! Two winners will be drawn at the end of the pre-order period and one winner will receive a free copy of the Volume 3 digital zine, the other will receive a free copy of the Volume 3 physical zine. (If you win the giveaway but already purchased the zine, you will be refunded in full.) You can only reblog once a day, but the more reblogs, the better your odds, so keep at it!
Pricing details and shipping costs below the cut ⚔️
Pricing:
Digital copy of Volume 3: $9 USD
Physical copy of Volume 3 (includes digital): $25 USD plus shipping and handling
Physical copy of Volume 3 (includes digital) + cover art postcards: $27 USD plus shipping and handling
Physical Copy of Volume 3 (includes digital) + damaged* copy of Volume 1 + cover art postcards : $29 USD plus shipping and holding
Physical Copy of Volume 3 (includes digital) + copy of Volume 2 + cover art postcards: $35 USD plus shipping and handling
Physical Copy of Volume 3 (includes digital) + damaged* copy of Volume 1 + copy of Volume 2 + cover art postcards: $37 USD plus shipping and handling
*Damaged Volume 1 copies are available due to an issue with the bindings during the Volume 1 printing.
**You will NOT receive a digital copy of Volumes 1 or 2.
Shipping:
United States:
$5 USD for the first individual physical copy plus $2 for each additional physical copy purchased
$7 USD for a bundle of 2 books (V3+V1 or V3+V2) plus $7 for each additional bundle of 2 books
$9 USD for a bundle of 3 books (V3+V2+V1) plus $9 for each additional bundle of 3 books
International:
$20 USD for the first physical copy plus $5 for each additional physical copy purchased
$25 USD for a bundle of 2 books (V3+V1 or V3+V2) plus $25 for each additional bundle of 2 books
$30 USD for a bundle of 3 books (V3+V2+V1) plus $30 for each additional bundle of 3 books
For those who don't know, recently this Bill was proposed in Parliament in Aotearoa New Zealand by an MP from New Zealand First, a right-wing party that makes up part of our current coalition government:
This Bill proposes adding definitions of "woman", "female", "man" and "male" to the Legislation Act 2019, making these the new legal definitions of these terms that apply across all New Zealand Legislation.
This Bill ignores the fact that trans people in Aotearoa have been able to legally amend their gender markers since 1995, and that people can register their legal gender as non-binary. It also fails to account for the existence of intersex people and general variations of sex characteristics that make this binary impractical (and ironic given the use of the term "biological reality"). AND it does not take into account the fact that Māori (the indigenous people of Aotearoa) recognise multiple genders and did not follow gender roles as westerners see them until colonialism happened.
On top of all that, the claims of protecting the integrity of sex-based rights fall short when you realise that the ambiguity of what "adult" refers to here will actually potentially remove rights, especially around reproductive rights of young people.
The Bill was read at Parliament, and the other parties making up the coalition voted to allow the Bill to pass on to a select committee to review the Bill, gather information, and make a formal report for the House with their recommendations. A part of this process is accepting public submissions.
People can make submissions in support of or in opposition to the proposed bill. You can make your submission online here:
If you need support with drafting your bill, there is a guide on the Parliament website, and some helpful folks have put together a site of resources including a submission generator. (If people have more resources for support, please feel free to add them in reblogs or comments)
Submissions close on Thursday, 02 July 2026 at 23:59 New Zealand Time.
Rhetoric like this is often pushed on the message of a "silent majority" who secretly agree with it. The best way to show that isn't the case is by showing up and making our voices heard. If you are in Aotearoa, I strongly urge you to make a submission and let the Select Committee know you do not support this bill, and you do not support legal discrimination of trans, intersex, takatāpui and non-binary people in our country.
Text of tweet under the cut because it is loooong.
But... Stochastic Parrots.
Timnit Gebru was fired from Google in December 2020 for refusing to retract a research paper, and every single warning that paper made about large language models has now happened at a scale the industry spent 4 years trying to make people forget about.
Her name is Timnit Gebru.
She co-led the Ethical AI team at Google. She co-wrote a paper called "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots" with Emily Bender at the University of Washington and two other researchers. The paper was 14 pages long. It was submitted to a top AI ethics conference. And it was the reason Google decided that one of the most senior Black women in AI research could no longer work there.
The story Google told publicly was that she resigned. The story she told, confirmed by 2,695 of her colleagues in an open letter, was that she was fired by email while on vacation because she refused to either retract the paper or remove her name from it.
The paper had not even been published yet.
Here is what she actually wrote, and why every prediction inside it has now come true.
The first warning was about scale itself. Bender and Gebru argued that training ever-larger models on ever-larger scrapes of the internet would produce systems that appeared fluent but had no actual understanding of language. They called these systems stochastic parrots because they would repeat patterns from training data with statistical confidence and zero comprehension. The paper predicted that this apparent intelligence would fool both users and developers into trusting outputs that were structurally incapable of being reliable.
This was 2020. GPT-3 had just come out. The paper predicted the hallucination problem before anyone had a word for it.
The second warning was about bias amplification. The paper documented in detail that internet-scale training data contains systematic overrepresentation of dominant viewpoints and underrepresentation of marginalized ones. The models would not just absorb this bias. They would amplify it, because the optimization process rewards confident outputs, and confidence in language patterns tracks frequency in the training set.
The prediction was that hiring tools built on these models would discriminate against women. That healthcare triage tools would underperform on Black patients. That loan approval systems would entrench inequality while presenting their decisions as neutral algorithmic judgment.
Every one of those things has now been documented in deployment.
Amazon's hiring algorithm penalized resumes that contained the word "women" in any context. Healthcare risk scoring algorithms used by major US hospitals were found to systematically underestimate the medical needs of Black patients. Apple Card's credit algorithm gave wives credit lines 10x lower than their husbands for the same financial profile.
The third warning was about environmental cost. The paper calculated that training a single large language model produced emissions equivalent to the lifetime output of 5 cars. The prediction was that the race to scale would create an environmental footprint that would eventually rival entire industries.
In 2024, Google's emissions were up 48% from 2019, and the company explicitly blamed AI infrastructure. Microsoft's were up 29%, same reason. Both companies have now quietly abandoned the climate commitments they were publicly celebrating the year Gebru was fired.
The fourth warning was about documentation. The paper argued that the training datasets being assembled were too large for anyone to actually audit. Nobody at Google, OpenAI, Meta, or any other lab could tell you with confidence what was in the data their models were trained on. This was not a temporary problem to be solved later. It was a permanent feature of the approach.
In 2023, researchers discovered that the LAION-5B dataset, used to train Stable Diffusion and other major image models, contained thousands of images of child sexual abuse material. The companies that had trained on the dataset had no way of knowing. The paper predicted that category of failure 3 years before it was found.
The fifth warning was the one Google cared about most.
Bender and Gebru argued that the deployment of these systems would centralize linguistic and cultural power in the hands of the small number of companies that could afford to train them. The internet would become a place where the dominant voice was a statistical average of dominant voices, presented as a neutral assistant. Languages underrepresented in the training data would degrade over time as more web content was generated by these systems and fed back into the next training run.
This is now happening in real time. A 2024 study found that 57% of new web content in English is AI-generated or AI-assisted. Researchers studying low-resource languages have documented active degradation in translation quality, because the synthetic content fed back into training is itself worse in those languages.
The paper Google fired her for predicted the model collapse problem before model collapse had a name.
The mechanism behind why this all happened is the part of her work that nobody quotes.
Gebru's argument was not that AI is dangerous in some abstract sci-fi sense. Her argument was that AI is dangerous in a very specific structural sense. The technology was being built by a small group of researchers who shared similar backgrounds, worked at similar companies, and were rewarded for shipping products faster than competitors. The incentive structure made it impossible for safety, ethics, and bias concerns to slow anything down. Anyone inside the system who raised those concerns was either ignored, sidelined, or removed.
She was making that argument from inside Google.
Then Google proved her right by removing her.
The team Google had built to make sure their AI was safe was dismantled in 90 days because they did the job they had been hired to do. Margaret Mitchell, the other co-lead of the Ethical AI team, was fired two months after Gebru for searching through her own emails for evidence of how Gebru had been treated.
Gebru did not stop. She founded DAIR, the Distributed AI Research Institute, in 2021. The mission is to do AI research outside the control of the companies that have a financial interest in not hearing the answers.
Every prediction in the Stochastic Parrots paper has now been validated by deployment. Hallucinations are an industry-wide problem the largest labs cannot solve. Bias amplification has been documented in hiring, healthcare, lending, and criminal justice. Environmental costs are larger than entire small countries. Training data audits remain impossible. Model collapse is an active research crisis at every major lab.
The question worth sitting with is the one almost no one in the industry will say out loud.
Every researcher with the technical credibility to call out these problems watched what happened to her in December 2020 and made a calculation about their own career. The number of people willing to speak publicly about safety and ethics issues inside the major AI labs collapsed after that firing and has not recovered.
The researcher Google fired for warning about exactly what is now happening was right.
The company that fired her is now the second-largest deployer of the technology she warned about.
And the people inside that company who agree with her are not allowed to say so.
In case you just skimmed the post above and missed it, I want to reiterate and highlight Gebru's current position as Executive Director of Distributed AI Research Institute. If you're curious about what AI technology might look like when not applied in the horrifically unethical and damaging way it's currently applied, please check them out.
If we want to have nice things, decentralization is essential, and if we want to decentralize, we need to have our eyes on things that are beyond the scope of the current Big Tech narrative.
The Distributed AI Research Institute is a globally distributed organization of academics, activists, and engineers conducting community-roo
For anybody not caught up: Tennessee just passed a new map that pretty much makes it so black neighborhoods have no power in local votes. Two things about this. While protestors were chanting "No Jim Crow", white Tennessee lawmakers were caught laughing on video. On top of this, Representative Justin Pearson and his brother KeShaun Pearson were arrested for trying to give their takes on the matter (which is not only their legal right but literally his job). If you give a shit about black people, help fight this. We can't allow a return to Jim Crow.
A local paper had some great photographs, all taken by Nicole Hester:
The day before, Rep. Justin Pearson tries to attend a Senate Committee meeting and is barred access by the Sergeant at Arms.
Lawmakers and protesters link arms as the descend the capitol steps.
Once inside the chamber, Democratic representatives continued to stand together with arms linked.
They continued standing together with arms linked as votes were cast.
Democratic representatives take a group photo protesting the redistricting.
Rep. Justin Jones burns a photo of the Confederate flag with the words, We will not go back.
And stomps the ashes.
KeShaun Pearson being escorted from the building by the Staties.
KeShaun Pearson (left) being taken into custody. Rep. Justin Pearson (right) showing his support of his brother.
Additional information: State lawmakers have been gunning for Pearson and Jones nearly their entire terms. Most notably, in 2023, the House expelled them for participating in a protest at the Capitol. Their districts had to have special elections to have them reinstated.
Pearson is one of the plaintiffs of a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the redistricting.
The city most affected by the redistricting is Memphis, where locals are fighting against xAI's data center, which has been operating with very little oversight and is poisoning the people who live there. Here is a previous post on that with more information and more sources.
Here’s the thing I feel like a lot of folks don’t get: I’m not trying to forget what you said. Honestly, I really tried not to. I can’t control what I do and don’t remember—forgetting things just happens. It’s annoying for you, I know, but for me it’s distressing as hell and when you make a big deal out of it rather than just reminding me you make me feel ashamed. I’ll remember that, at least.
It costs you nothing to be kind to people with memory problems. Please. It’s scary enough without people treating memory lapses as a personal failing.
HR 7661 is the United States censorship bill being called the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act.” This act does nothing to protect children, and is part of ongoing attacks against transgender people in the United States.
Authors Against Book Bans has put together a script for calling your representatives. If you aren’t sure who your representatives are, the script link includes a tool to find them.
If you’re a writer, editor, illustrator, or otherwise involved in book production, you can also join Authors Against Book Bans to access further resources for fighting censorship.
I've reblogged this post before but this is the first time I've seen it on my dash since I started using a walking stick and rollator myself. They've made such a difference.
Neomiel's Meanderings @neomiel - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
