Andi's Sideblog

This is where the non-Trek stuff will go, probably - we'll see! (I'm just trying it out ^_^)

[notastackofbooks]

Just trying to weed out a bit of the other random stuff from my main blog, make it feel a bit, idk, tidier? At least in my brain, anyway.

[Avatar credit: vanilla_moon's picrew creator]

[druid-for-hire]

There's this sort of anthropomorphizing that inherently happens in language that really gets me sometimes. I'm still not over the terminology of "gravity assist," the technique where we launch satellites into the orbit of other planets so that we can build momentum via the astounding and literally astronomical strength of their gravitational forces, to "slingshot" them into the direction we need with a speed that we could never, ever, ever create ourselves. I mean, some of these slingshots easily get probes hurtling through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour. Wikipedia has a handy diagram of the Voyager 1 satellite doing such a thing.

"Gravity assist." "Slingshot." Of course, on a very basic and objective level, yes, we are taking advantage of forces generated by outside objects to specifically help in our goals. We're getting help from objects in the same way a river can power a mill. And of course we call it a "slingshot," because the motion is very similar (mentally at least; I can't be sure about the exact physics).

Plus, especially compared to the other sciences, the terminology for astrophysics is like, really straightforward. "Black hole?" Damn yeah it sure is. "Big bang?" It sure was. "Galactic cluster?" Buddy you're never gonna guess what this is. I think it's an effect of the fact that language is generally developed for life on earth and all the strange variances that happen on its surface, that applying it to something as alien and vast as space, general terms tend to suffice very well in a lot more places than, like... idk, botany.

But, like. "Gravity assist." I still can't get the notion out of my head that such language implies us receiving active help from our celestial neighbors. They come to our aid. We are working together. We are assisted. Jupiter and the other planets saw our little messengers coming from its pale blue molecular cousin, and we set up the physics just right, so that they could help us send them out to far stranger places than this, to tell us all about what they find out there.

We are assisted.

And there is no better way to illustrate my feelings on the matter than to just show you guys one of my favorite paintings, this 1973 NASA art by Rick Guidice to show the Pioneer probe doing this exact thing:

"... You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. ..."

Gravity assist.

[ambrosial-sunshine]

For the painting especially there’s a beauty in depicting some of our most advanced technology as synonymous with the most ancient. Very few people throughout history have had the privilege of seeing the face of Jupiter but many would recognize the sling thrower immediately.

[seat-safety-switch]

I love riding the bus. It's efficient, inexpensive, comfortable, and gets you where you need to go. Also, sometimes I break one of my cars and need a ride home. Or all of my cars are broken, and I need a ride to work. If you have the opportunity to ride a bus, I strongly recommend it.

Recently, people have been trying to replace buses with smaller buses, known as "taxis." That word feels like it should be short for something, but nobody seems to know what. The idea is that instead of the driver and a bunch of people, it's just the driver and you.

Because a taxi is smaller than a bus, it can go more places. Fits right into weird alleys, or down residential streets, or following a suspicious person during a tense spy caper. Unfortunately, that also makes it way more expensive, because you no longer have a hundred other passengers splitting the bill with you. Also, sometimes the driver insists on making conversation, and you have to find a way to jump out of the car at highway speeds without seeming rude. Tuck and roll!

If there is a problem with the bus, it's that it can't tow your car. Sure, a lot of the new ones have a dingus on the front for carrying a bicycle. And a bicycle only. The driver will get froggy if you try to put in an entire Ford nine-inch rear axle, and even angrier if you try to carry it on the bus during rush hour. That makes it very inconvenient sometimes, which is something I think should be fixed in order to increase transit adoption.

If the bus could also carry my broken car home from the Kay Bee Toys parking lot where I blew it up trying to do donuts with no oil in the engine, then I'd never need to ride in anything else ever again. Maybe in the glorious future of mixed-use urbanism, this beautiful dream of dragging my shattered automobile through a utopia of peace and love can become real.

[starlightxraven]

Nobody needs AI to search the Internet, court says in ruling against Google

Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry.

[appalachian-werewolf]

"Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry."

It fucking better.

[mrsjdavis]

Like to charge, reblog to cast?

[mousidy]

"sex is real" is a very funny thing to say to a group of people who very famously change their sex on purpose

[mousidy]

in abandoning discussion of the nuances of sex in trans discourse, we've ironically let bioessentialist, binaristic thinking fester and rot out our communities

we've stopped actually challenging the binary, we just slapped "amab" and "afab" over "male" and "female," and we treat transition itself like a mere act of dressup. we let blatant transphobia run rampant all the time as long as people call each other "amab" and "afab" instead of misgendering them directly

"afab bodies," "amab energy," "afab only housing," "amab behavior" THIS IS TRANSPHOBIA. YOU ARE MAKING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT PEOPLE'S BEHAVIORS AND BODIES BASED ON THEIR ASSIGNED SEX. THE WORD FOR THAT IS TRANSPHOBIA

sex does not determine your behaviors. sex is not a binary. sex can be changed, and IS changed by medical transition, INCLUDING hrt

is it even a "trans" community if we don't hold these things to be true? how can a community of trans people who bind each other to their agabs like the rest of the world does be called a trans community? come the fuck on

[witchertits]

#I keep thinking about this reddit post for [my city] where someone said and I am not exaggerating#“can anyone help us move? we’re just two AFABs we can’t lift our furniture”#absolutely ridiculous. abolish assigned sex from your vocab NOW#also totally laughable to imply that we are not strong enough to move furniture. like do you even KNOW any dykes#“being born with a vagina makes you weak” is wildly sexist even when you dress it up with modern language

I dug out the post bc it still makes me mad lol

[mousidy]

[raccoonmilf]

Chat, is it considered “abusive roommate behavior” to release a raccoon into the living space after you have asked your roommate for months to please clean up their messes (they do not pay any of the mortgage)

[raccoonmilf]

For context, when I used to live alone I would do something called “Princess Time” where I would do an initial sweep (to remove any significant hazards) and then I would release a raccoon into the living area and clean. This helped because I would 1) feel like a princess and 2) the raccoon would bring attention to things my ADHD brain had decided to ignore and I’d quickly clean that stuff up.

So like, if I’m expected to clean the house now, I will be doing it in the way that is most effective for me. And anything that has not been cleaned up after months of having sit-down talks and sending reminders and being promised things will change, might be deemed “trash” by the trash panda and thrown away.

[raccoonmilf]

We haven’t done since we moved into the house, because I didn’t want to cause my roommate or their cats destress or have their things destroyed by a raccoon

[raccoonmilf]

I am a raccoon biologist and one of the few people in the state allowed to take in captive bred raccoons that had been possessed illegally. The raccoon in the photos is Moonshine, but she is currently at the animal sanctuary where I work as I had been quarantining multiple new intakes from an abuse case. I still have two males (Rum Tum Tugger and Electra) left in my home enclosure as we are getting them neutered and then hopefully sending them to an AZA accredited zoo.

I wanna make things very clear that underneath all the whimsy, I am a trained professional.

[raccoonmilf]

Those vibes are likely because I’m the original creator of Dashcon and my personality has not changed since 2012 lmao

[fipindustries]

[catchymemes]

[musingsofaraven]

Unless you speak whatever the language in this is (maybe Russian? It sounds at least related to Russian), you won’t understand exactly what they’re saying

You will however, understand exactly what they’re saying from the context of the video

And you will get to hear this person’s wonderful laughter

Sound definitely needs to be on

[tozik-observer-again]

i speak the lamguage heres my attempt at translating it enjoy

“so here’s your- uh- so here’s our new hheheehee. door to the restroom–it’s transparent. so you enter the restroom. you enter it. everything’s fine here, you’re looking at yourself. here you can, well. everyone who goes through there can see you. so here’s the shower. it’s relatively private, you enter the shower, and like kind of you wash yourself here–ahhhhuehAHAHAHA A HA *squeaky glass cleaning noises* *laughter* and like ok ok, so you’ve decided to wash your hands or–uh- sit on the toilet–tthhhghheeHAHAHA H H H H H H H H H H HH *wheeze* AAAAAHAHAHAHAHHAHHHAA *wheeze 2* but! but! actually, it’s ok, they’ve thought of everything–you take this and you, uh, go like "okay, i want some privacy”, and youhhehe close *inhale*, you close the curtainkhhehe *wheeze 3* hereee. *inhale again* and you close .. this one tookjhhhffeheehehe *wheeze 4* and this one you close too–toohhheghehe *whee* and here you wanna like sit on the toilet. everything, everything is closed here, from there it’s not visible, and so you sit down on hheheheghjj–the toilet–hhhHHGAAHAHAHHAAHAGMMHSAZCTUOJSA"

[jiubilee]

The real tragedy about the barricade is that we don’t know how much is true. Victor Hugo was there at the June Rebellion, so what is fact and what is fiction? That question gives me chills because we’ll never know. 

[enjolras-in-valinor]

Charles Jeanne (who I think is probably actual real life Enjolras) wrote an in-detail account of the ACTUAL barricades in a letter to his sister after the fact

you can read it, tenlittlebullets translated it into English :)

it’s really graphic, he leaves no gory details out, just FYI if you’re gonna read it, keep TW: VIOLENCE  in mind

[tenlittlebullets]

#how is he real-life enjolras if he survived (via metellus-cimber)

I’m so glad somebody asked this, because the answer is: when they finally ran out of ammunition, Charles Jeanne rounded up everyone who was still standing, went, “look, if we’re going to die, we might as well die fighting,” and led a suicidal ten-man charge against an entire flippin’ infantry column, armed with nothing but bayonets. The first few ranks of soldiers were so unprepared for such a spectacularly insane attack that they were too surprised to shoot. They crossed bayonets and tried to hold the insurgents off in hand-to-hand combat, but Jeanne’s swordsmanship was apparently aces, because he held off a bunch of them at once and covered his friends as they tried to breach the ranks. And once they were in, nobody could shoot them for fear of taking out their own guys.

So the last stand that the insurgents had intended as a noble suicide ended in them breaking through the ranks entirely and winding up in the next street over, outside the combat zone, going “well shit, what do we do now?” (I’m guessing the infantry column wasn’t very deep; central Paris at that point was a rabbit warren of narrow twisty streets, and assembling troops en masse for an organized attack was a logistical nightmare.) Unlike the National Guard, the army weren’t total chumps and got themselves turned around to give chase and start shooting once they weren’t at risk of friendly fire any longer… and that’s when all the civilians holed up in their houses went “no way, you’re not getting your hands on these crazy bastards” and started hurling furniture and crockery down on the soldiers’ heads. Jeanne was understandably distracted at the time, but afterwards somebody informed him that the barrage of unlikely projectiles included a piano. A piano. That is some straight-up Looney Tunes slapstick right there. No wonder Hugo went for the heroic death scene instead; if he’d stuck to real life, he probably would’ve gotten complaints that he’d wrecked his readers’ suspension of disbelief.

Anyway, someone opened an alley gate for them to shelter in and take stock of the casualties–most of them survived(!!!), but a few were pretty nastily wounded. Their host then had to lock Charles Jeanne in to keep him from charging right back out and taking on the whole goddamn army singlehanded. He probably would’ve broken down the door if the poor man hadn’t pointed out that going back out would give away his wounded comrades’ hiding place and the identities of the people sheltering them. They sat there listening to the gunfire gradually slow and go silent, and then in the middle of the night the ones who could still walk were allowed to slip away one by one at long intervals from each other. Charles Jeanne went straight home, slept like the dead for a few hours, was woken up at five in the morning with a warning that he’d been denounced and the building was surrounded, and then slipped out in disguise and managed to evade the police for four months before a former comrade ratted him out and he was arrested.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Charles Jeanne’s letter is an absolute treasure that deserves to be available to anyone in Les Mis fandom who wants to read it. Incidentally, “how Actual Historical Enjolras survived the barricades by being too good at his suicide mission” is also one of the stories I tell when anyone asks me what the hell is so interesting about researching people nobody’s ever heard of from an obscure chapter of French history. 

[tenlittlebullets]

Bringing this back for Barricade Day! To answer a few questions that keep coming up in the reblogs: here’s my translation of Jeanne’s letter, which was my main source. Jeanne stood trial, was imprisoned instead of executed (because can you imagine what a martyr he would’ve made), and died of tuberculosis just a few years later. Despite his improbable survival story, the RL June Rebellion was not an everybody-lives AU–like the revolt in Les Mis, it ended in a hard-fought retreat into one of the buildings on the street, followed by a massacre. The guys who led a suicide charge and accidentally won were, unfortunately, the exception.

[animentality]

[soberscientistlife]

Do Not Let HR do this to you. It is not illegal to talk about wages in the work place. I did and got a 12% raise!

[katsdom]

True info. Now let me add something: The power of documentation. (I was a long time steward in a nurses union.)

Remember: The "'E" in email stands for evidence.

That cuts both ways. Be careful what you put into an email. It never really goes away and can be used against you.

But can also be a powerful tool for workplace fairness.

Case 1: Your supervisor asks you to do something you know is either illegal or against company policy. A verbal request. If things go wrong, you can count on them denying that they ever told you to do that. You go back to your desk, or wherever and you send them an email: "I just want to make sure that I understood correctly that you want me to do xxxxx" Quite often, once they see it in writing, they will change their mind about having you do it. If not, you have documentation.

Case 2: You have a schedule you like, you've had that schedule for a while, it works for you. Your supervisor comes to you and says "We're really short-handed now and I need you to change your schedule just for a month until we can get someone else hired. It's just temporary and you can have your old schedule back after a month." A month goes by and they forget entirely that they made that promise to you. So, once again, when they make the initial request, you send them an email "I'm happy to help out temporarily, but just want to make sure I understand correctly that I will get my old schedule back after a month as you promised." Documentation.

[can-i-make-image-descriptions]

[Image ID: Text reading: In the middle of a busy clinic at our practice, I got pulled in by my manager to speak to HR, who must have made a special trip because she lives several states away, and told I was being 'investigated' for discussing wages with my other employees. She told me it was against company policy to discuss wages.

Me; That's illegal.

Them: (start italics) three slow, long seconds of staring at me blankly (end italics) Uh...

Me: That's an illegal policy to have. The right to discuss wages is a right protected by the National Labor Relations board. I used to be in a union. I know this.

HR: Oh, this is news to me! I have been working HR for 18 years and I never knew that. Haha. Well try not do do it anyway, it makes people upset, haha.

Me: people are entitled to their opinions about what their work is worth. Bye.

I then left, and sent her several texts and emails saying I would like a copy of their company policy to see where this wage discussion policy was kept. She quickly called me back in to her office.

HR: You know what, there is no policy like that in the handbook! I double check. Sorry about the confusion, my apologies.

Me: You still haven't given me the paper saying that we had this discussion. I am going to need some protection against retaliation.

HR: Oh haha yes here you go.

I just received a paper with legal letterhead and an apology saying there was no verbal warning or write up. Don't even take their shit you guys. Keep talking about wages. Know your worth. /End ID]

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

At one of my old (shit) jobs my boss would continually come have these verbal discussions with me and would never put anything in writing I took to summarizing every discussion we had in email. Like “just to confirm that you asked me to do X by Y date and you understand that means I won’t be able to complete the previous task you gave me until Z date - 2 weeks later than originally scheduled - because you want me to prioritize this new project.

The woman would then storm back into my office screaming at me for putting the discussion in writing and arguing about pushing back the other project or whatever. At which point I would summarize that conversation in email as well. Which would bring her storming back in, rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

Anyway I cannot imagine how badly that job would have gone if I hadn’t put all her wildly unreasonable demands in writing. Bitch still hated me but she could never hang me for “missing deadlines” because I always had in writing that she’d pushed the project back because she wanted something else done first.

Paper your asses babes. Do not let them get away with shit. If they won’t put what they’re asking you to do in writing then write it up yourself and email it to them.

[cockbiteindustries]

Does anyone have that one story of the lady who worked at a bank or something and management tried to can her, but she had evidence or something that ended up having her win a lawsuit? If I recall that story had both evidence, and the importance of employee communication as a co-worker tipped her off so she made sure she had an evidence papertrail

[lumberjackloverboy-moved]

for my fellow psychotics who struggle with thinking someone is in their house, a method I’ve found that really works are these guys:

i put them on my front door and anytime it opens they ring. that way if i think someone has broken in or i see someone who isn’t there i can think back to if the bells have rung, and if they haven’t i can assure myself it’s not real. obviously it’s not fool proof, like if you are prone to auditory hallucinations, but it has really helped me calm down in time to avoid major psychotic breaks. it’s a real lifesaver

nonpsychotics encouraged to rb

[tofu-rebecca]

seeing "protect the action figures" as a response to "Protect the dolls" is maybe the most insulting thing I've ever seen, to both trans men and trans women.

[tofu-rebecca]

this post is blowing up and TO BE FAIR: i don't think protect the action figures is a widespread thing, one guy said it and immediately got dogged on

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

traditional chinese firework huohu火壶 by 江寻千

[gnars-house]

[hollowedskin]

This is beautiful. Is this the same lady that learned the iron fireworks technique too?

[ilovehumanssosomuch]

I'm posting this here because yes it's visually beautiful, but more importantly it shows the process of learning. It's not easy. It's scary. There's not a lot of people doing it.

It's beautiful because of the effort, not in spite of it. I feel like we don't value the effort of learning in social media posts, and this was incredibly done.

[elbiotipo]

More than "here in the Southern Hemisphere we have inverted seasons :)" thing, which is TECHNICALLY true, I would go a step further and encourage to think about that "much of the world does not exactly has a spring-summer-fall-winter season sequence as they show in cartoons"

[paperdragonsong]

I will scream about this to anyone who listens forever. AUSTRALIA DOES NOT HAVE "ENGLISH SEASONS BUT BACKWARDS" and the insistence that it does creates a massive layer of alienation from the natural world.

I never really realised how much difference it makes until I went to England and realised that here the change of seasons is an obvious, visible, physical change in the world. Like, everything REALLY IS orange and foggy in autumn! In spring there are flowers EVERYWHERE, so much more than any other season, and the trees really do have all blossom and no leaves. Even if it doesn't snow, in winter there's frost all the time and the trees are bare and the sky is visibly greyer all the time. You don't need to be told "this date is the first day of spring", you can SEE IT (although this is getting way messier and less precise due to climate change).

By contrast, most places in Australia the seasons we're taught feel like arbitrary categories - and is it any surprise considering they're colonial constructs? Orange-leaved autumn and blossom-covered spring is a cartoon stereotype with no relevance on a continent where ALL NATIVE TREES ARE EVERGREEN!! Snowy winters are a joke in the desert, and even sunny summers don't ring particularly true considering that much of the country is in the tropics, where summer means monsoons - not that I've ever seen the concept that WE HAVE A MONSOON SEASON taught at an Australian school.

Most Indigenous nations around Australia had six or more seasons, revolving around wet and dry times as much as hot and cold, and marked by the appearances of certain native animals and flowers. Schools need to start teaching the real seasons, and explaining that climate cycles are too complex to generalise globally, or else we will keep raising generations who view the natural world as hostile and unpredictable and climate predictions as generally irrelevent and frequently wrong - and I'm sure I don't need to spell out why that's a problem in the era of climate crisis.

[tiredtransgal]

i want to add that 40% of the world's population lives in the tropics, and the 4 season model just doesn't make much sense for a lot of places in there. usually it's just the wet season/monsoon season and the dry season. it's often hot year round.

the 4 season model as you and i know it is a european invention, though 4 season models aren't unique to europe! most notably china has the same type of season subdivision.

in general the way humans define seasons is largely subjective and varies across cultures. the one you were taught is not at all universal!

[anxietyproblem]

[kaioty-summer]

Hey, did y'all see this?

I saw this when running newpipe. But wait, it gets deeper. I clicked on the details buttons and it said as of today,we have 83 days left until Google rolld out this new requirement for apps inside and outside of the google play store. If any developer disagrees with their new terms and fees, they will be blocked!

I'll share some of the info below:

Looks like they're trying to nuke the remaining privacy and freedoms we have left on the internet.

What to do?

-Get your developer friends to not comply to their new guides

- Sign the open letter on the site and take action by checking out thwir full resources list on their website as well!

To summarize, this is all daunting especially when you feel all alone with unfair and inhumane regulations comming out faster than improvements ut we got this working together!

Share the link with your friends,family and anyone who will listen!

Your phone is about to stop being yours. In September 2026, Google will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with them.

[kaioty-summer]

Also, I wanted to add the wikipage and EFF statements about Keep Android Open Org so people can have a better understanding and more resources because I didn't give enough earlier and I will take that critique.

Google's Mandatory Android Dev Registration Rule Faces Revolt

EFF and F-Droid have led 37 organizations in demanding Google rescind its mandatory Android developer registration policy set to take effect

Keep Android Open - Wikipedia

[depsidase]

[haunted-hideaway]

I’m glad that OP:

1) Figured this out.

2) Shared so others can learn from their mistake.