Made Of Love

This is where I post stuff.

[alleesaur]

the red herring

[anonbeadraws]

Today's warm up: Tuesday Shift: 12AM-6AM: Dormant. For now.

[crabussy]

made a post about how I'm relieved and excited to be alive in 2026 and how I'm glad I exist in a time where music and education and communication are so expansive and accessible and said post wasn't even up for a single hour before someone started declaring that actually there are evil revolting breaches of human rights happening right now. not even an hour

[crabussy]

I am asking with all the kindness I can muster to please let people tentatively express their hope for the future without needing to remind them that actually, sometimes life is terrible and horrific. I am aware. please trust me I am so aware. I am alive on planet earth. it is hard to not be aware. I just also want to enjoy being alive. I don't have to be constantly miserable in order to care about other people. jesus fucking christ

[ceilingfan5]

MEASURE NEVER

CUT WHENEVER

LIVE FOREVER

DIE ON ANY HILL

[teaboot]

CHASE DESIRE

FUCK AIR FRYER

FRIES ON FIRE

EARTHQUAKE DRILL

[feeshies]

Funny growing up in the late 2000s and seeing constant "don't text and drive" warnings, PSAs telling us to put our phones down behind the wheel, wait until you're home to send that text, a phone-distracted driver is a deadly driver etc etc

Only for modern car manufacturers to be like "we made the car a phone :) now you have to text and drive to change the radio station :)"

[mamoru]

lend me a hand with recall stuff? I need help finding some regulatory documents.

the 🇺🇸CPSC🇺🇸 has been recalling a bunch of adult portable bed rails. these are rails that attach to beds or slide under mattresses to help with getting in and out of bed, and are especially popular among disabled people and seniors. and they cause a lot of injuries and deaths because people get trapped in them, so new regulations went into effect in 2023 to help make them less dangerous. millions of adult portable bed rails, across dozens if not hundreds of individual models at this point, have been recalled in the US over the past several years.

the most recent bed rail recall was today, there were two of them actually, both only sold a few hundred units which are baby numbers for a recall. but I have been planning on making a bigger post compiling bed rail recalls and explaining the dangers, because this genre of product is incredibly fucking dangerous.

here is one recent one and it looks like this for reference:

but this one single recall itself is not the point. I have hit a roadblock and I need your help. the description of this, and many other bed rail recalls, includes the following:

The recalled bed rails violate the mandatory standard for adult portable bed rails because users can become entrapped within the bed rail or between the bed rail and the side of the mattress, posing a serious entrapment hazard and risk of death by asphyxiation.

so that link goes to a CPSC page about adult portable bed rails which says:

Entrapment: Entrapment zones are areas, gaps, or openings that can potentially capture or restrain a person’s body part. There are 4 different zones to test for entrapment: (1) within the rail, (2) between the rail support and mattress, (3) between the rail and mattress, (4) under the end of the rail and mattress. See Figure 1 of ASTM F3186-17 for a visual depiction of these zones. Depending on the zone, different methods for testing are used.

I wanted to learn about adult portable bed rail regulations, to make an informative tumblr PSA. this diagram, figure 1 of ASTM F3186-17, in particular sounds really important! especially considering the CPSC references it specifically. I want to at least see this diagram, and any other relevant diagrams, because decent diagrams are really efficient at communicating this kind of safety information. and to look at it, the CPSC says to go here and look at figure 1.

and when I followed the link to see the diagram of how bed rails can kill people, so I can warn about their dangers online, I discovered ASTM charges $72 USD for a PDF of these documents. this is a non-government organization.

ASTM is linked multiple places on this page and the CPSC even acknowledges that many legal documents on ASTM can not be viewed without paying. ASTM's read-only electronic reading room is only accessible after making an account. and to the best of my understanding, unless you already happen to be associated with an organization that offers free accounts, individual ASTM accounts cost $115 per year. students can complete an application to request a free and limited account.

does anyone know a trustworthy place to browse these and other similar US regulatory documents for free? hey? what the fuck

life-saving regulations should be free to browse. laws should be free to read. safety diagrams should be free to see and to spread. people have been KILLED from these fucking bed rails. in 2024, the CPSC said 92% of bed rail deaths are from people's necks or heads getting trapped in the rail. these deaths are tragic, painful, and PREVENTABLE!!!!!!!!!!

I know very little about ASTM, or if they are a respected organization that absolutely fucking rocks and has saved trillions of lives or something.

but I think the CPSC encouraging, maybe even mandating a paywall of over seventy fucking dollars charged to people trying to find out if they or their loved ones are in danger of a horrible and harrowing death is fucking repulsive. even if this information is available elsewhere for free somehow,

this whole process seems dysfunctional at best and manipulative and exploitative at worst. the thought of someone panicking in the middle of the night trying to figure out if they or their loved ones are at risk, seeing the CPSC link a $72 PDF while dizzy with worry, money they might not be able to readily spare, while thinking that price is mandatory to prevent a horrible accident because it was promoted by the actual US government - - THIS IS NOT A HELPFUL PROCESS!!!

if posting this or any other diagram could get me in trouble would an MS paint recreation not violate copyright or whatever? how can I find and spread as much of this information as possible without it potentially getting taken down?

thank you!

[mamoru]

solved!

thank you so much to @beetrans for finding the diagram!

PDF with a ton of information (from govinfo.gov):

the diagram is page 8, table 6. warning: these are simple but effective and somewhat graphic illustrations of people uh, dying from bed rails. but this link is .gov, meaning official US government, and this is a great PDF to learn about adult portable bed rail dangers. direct link to the diagram from federalregister dot gov (they made it transparent for some reason?)

I plan to make a great big post about this when I can, including overview of the recalls and everything, but here are a few quick facts about adult portable bed rails (APBRs). between january 2003 and december 2021, in the united states:

310 deaths from adult portable bed rails were identified

of deaths where this information was known, 158 occurred at home, 127 were in monitored facilities such as nursing homes, residential institutions, assisted living, care homes - - places that were intended to keep the victims safe...

“Rail Entrapment: There were 284 fatalities and two not-fatal injuries related to rail entrapment. This category includes incidents in which the victim was caught, stuck, wedged, or trapped between the mattress/bed and the bed rail, between bed rail bars, between a commode and rail, between the floor and rail, between the night table and rail, or between a dresser and rail. Based on the narratives, the most frequently injured body parts were the neck and head.”

“Falls: There were 23 deaths, one nonfatal knee fracture, and one non-injury incident related to falls. This category includes incidents in which the victim fell off the bed, fell and hit the bed rail, or hit and fell near the bed rail, and fell after climbing over the bed rail.”

death certificate data can take 2-3 years so the CPSC noted the number of APBR fatalities is likely way fucking higher just for 2003-2021. there had been a more recent effort to get more APBR data, but at the time of publication they had not yet completed the data collection

estimated 79,500 adult portable bed rail-related injuries treated in emergency rooms. not total injuries, these are exclusively injuries that resulted in an ER visit

if the image is used in a public dot gov links could reposting it get me in trouble somehow?

anyway, looks like I will be spending more time on federal register and gov info! great resources for learning about the US government!

[ravysu]

paint the town blue?

[qelflinq]

archeologists forever finding ancient little statues of fat women & animal people yet we still hating ? its been our favourite shit since we were apes and if u don’t understand this u need to get hit on the fucking head

[ghost-in-your-computer]

Tell me what you see.

A light in the darkness.

A bearded man.

A mushroom cloud.

A head on a pillow.

Voting ended onOct 26, 2025

[ghost-in-your-computer]

Everyone in the notes at me:

[setulose]

I think I might be about to send a deranged email

[setulose]

Couldn't find an email address so it was instead a deranged form submission

[setulose]

HUGE NEWS

[det395]

[inkskinned]

when i was younger and stupid and in the (glass) closet i was dating the son of a pharmacologist. this man had made millions developing medications. he was fond of me and privately told me i was too funny and smart to be dating boys.

he also said that it was incredibly unlikely that sexism will ever be resolved in the medical field. that the majority of medications i will ever take - even some of which are "for women" - will not be clinically tested on my body.

the problem, he said, was in getting any human clinical trial approved. to test on a body with a uterus - any body, even elderly patients or those who have been sterilized - was often nigh-impossible, because the concern was that the test patient may, at any point, become pregnant. once/if the patient became pregnant, the study would not be about "the effects of New Medication on the body." instead, the trial would fail - the results would be "the effects of New Medication on a developing fetus/pregnant patient."

it was massively easier, he said, to just test without accounting for a uterus. that's how he phrased it - accounting for a uterus.

at the time, i remember him talking about the ethical implications of testing on a developing fetus; how such testing could theoretically bankrupt a company if a lawsuit was filed. he talked about informed consent and about how long it took for any legislation to be passed about this - that in 1993; the year i was born, it finally became illegal to outright exclude women and minorities from clinical trials.

i remember him shrugging. "that's not to say it doesn't happen," he said. my ears were ringing.

i was thinking about how every time i have been rushed to the ER, the first thing they have asked me is if i am pregnant. when i broke my wrist at 16 years old - despite never having had sex - they made me wait three hours for the test to come back negative before they gave me pain meds. the possibility of a child haunts my health.

how many people have died on the table because they were waiting for the pregnancy test before treatment. how many people have died on the table because they were pregnant, and the only thing we care about is the fetus.

it is hard to explain to other people, but it feels like some kind of strange ghost. our entire lives, we are supposed to "save" our bodies for our future partners. but really we are just saving the body for the future child, aren't we? that hovering future-almost that cartwheels around in a miasma. you can't get your tubes tied, what if you change your mind? think of the child you must have, eventually.

who cares about you and your actual safety. think about what you could be carrying.

[unwell-radio-transmissions]

what 'cyberpunk dystopia already exists for disabled people' looks like for high tech aac users:

(here using 'voice' to mean both an aac program and an aac device.)

Your voice used to be free but now is behind a paywall. Your voice only runs on a subscription payment model and doesn't offer outright purchasing. The cost of outright purchasing your voice is several hundred dollars. Your voice runs ads. Your voice has planned obsolescence. Your voice ran out of funding and is no longer being updated. Your voice is free but requires coding knowledge to create. Your voice can only be used and accessed with a wifi connection. The people most trained to help you with your voice are expensive or unavailable specialists. You require additional aids to use your voice that are difficult to get and/or expensive.

Feel free to add on your own experiences. We listen to and look out for each other.

[autistic-af]

Source ~ Neurodivergent_Lou

Alt Text added to each image.

Note: these are different ways these can show up. They can also show up in a stereotypical way. If you've met one autistic, you've met one autistic.

[the-forest-library]

Get rid of ring cameras unless you like partnering with ICE

Amazon's Ring to partner with Flock, a network of AI cameras used by ICE, feds, and police | TechCrunch

Agencies that use Flock can request that Ring doorbell users share footage to help with "evidence collection and investigative work."

On the same day that Ring announced this partnership, 404 Media reported that ICE, the Secret Service, and the Navy had access to Flock’s network of cameras. By partnering with Ring, Flock could potentially access footage from millions more cameras.

[spitegoblin]

[ash-and-art]

This was the inevitable outcome of these devices btw

[thecollectibles]

Art by myango

[nickyandmikey]

when two musicians sing into the same microphone and lean in very close to each other… like omg are you guys gonna kiss now to relieve the homoerotic tension?😳

[nickyandmikey]

THIS IS NOT ABOUT ONE DIRECTION I DON’T KNOW WHO THIS “HARRY” PERSON IS GO WATCH BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND CLARENCE CLEMONS KISS ON STAGE RIGHT NOW

[irrelevantlyvalid]

op is the only valid person i’ve ever met. everyone else needs to come to the light

[chokolattejedi]

Okay, but this is really important: Bruce Springsteen occupied this really weird place in music history. His songs were all from this pessimistic, nihilistic view of an America that had let him down:

Just like the anti-Vietnam War protest songs that we associate with the 1960s, or the early nihilism that spawned punk music in the 1970s. But he didn’t *sound* like a punk anarchist; he sounded like a country rock singer. When he released Born in the U.S.A. people completely misinterpreted (or possibly ignored) the lyrics in favor of the tone of the music.

Politicians used his music to promote their ‘Murica Yes! brand, and he had to literally explain that that was not what he was about. He’s over here asking when we’re going to have jobs and heathcare, not stanning the politicians who weren’t helping the people.

It was also kind of a big deal that he had an integrated band, because even as late as the 1980s music was still kind of segregated and MTV was straight up racist. They refused to play and promote black artists and then claimed that were no black artists in the first place. Michael Jackson’s record company had to threaten a boycott of their white artists to get MTV to play his Thriller video.

Plus, the first black/white interracial kiss on TV was in 1968 (OG Star Trek). Also it took us until the 70s to get sympathetic gay characters on screen, and the 90s to get gay characters to kiss onscreen. And all of those firsts were met with outrage.

So keep that in mind when you see Bruce Springsteen not just playing with an interracial band, but engaging in an interracial, gay kiss on stage repeatedly.

Passages from American Popular Music by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman

[executeness]

I used to think that Bruce and Clarence kissing onstage was exuberance, showmanship, and telling racist homophobes to fuck off. Like, they picked up a certain kind of audience and went “Racist homophobes? Not in our house!” And started the kissing then but then I actually looked it up and

https://www.gq.com/story/this-fucked-me-up-bruce-springsteen-singing-about-clarence-clemons

It was a story where… we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn’t have been such an exceptional thing. - Bruce Springsteen

It wasn’t about showmanship or rejecting bigots or anything it was just. Damn right that was one of the loves of his life and damn right he was going to kiss him onstage

It gets me a little that Bruce has had a divorce, that he’s been married twice, but he loved Clarence for the rest of Clarence’s life and will presumably love him the rest of his own

Clemons said in one interview. “Bruce and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other’s lives. He was what I’d been searching for.” In another version of the story, Clemons says “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love.”

I’m having some emotions about it!

“He was elemental in my life,“ Springsteen adds, “and losing him was like losing the rain.”

Not just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world!

We have fewer narratives about taking risks and making statements for platonic love rather than romantic and supposedly it would be easier to downplay this onstage than romance and! They refused! They fucking refused! In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!

God I’m not okay about it

[ramshacklefey]

Now I’m mad that this is not among any of the things I was ever told about this artist.

[jbbartram-illu]

I knew about this in general (& via all those fabulous photos), but this just adds even more beautiful context <3

[eregyrn-falls]

Just to add to the pile: this was the cover of Springsteen’s break-through album Born to Run, in 1975:

I mean, will you LOOK at this:

This was the pic chosen for the album cover from an extensive photoshoot, too. A few others:

There’s a lot more online if you search. They’re all pretty amazing. But the photographer is right, the one chosen for the album cover just pops.

[gatheringbones]

that thing miss major said about fighting groups and how you need to spot the ringleader and attack his ego in a way that makes his underlings automatically start slashing at each other while jockeying for power and escape in the confusion they all create

[gatheringbones]

[“You learn to think on your feet. The amazing thing is how a sense of humor and sarcasm can take you right across the bridge [to safety] before they ever know what happened. You've got to read a group to see who is the real agitator. Mob mentality always has one person leading everyone else on, and they're rarely at the front. You need to make fun of that person. Then he'll need to [turn his attention to his friends and] defend himself to restore their respect.”]

[gatheringbones]

[“We’d sometimes carry two bricks in our purse. Two red bricks, and reinforce the purse straps so that it wouldn't snap off when you'd hit someone with it. If girls had cars, we'd get little kids' baseball bats (about a foot long), soak them in water for two weeks. This way when you use it, it won't break. Then dry it, cover it with electrical tape just the exact width of your hand. One side of tape down, one side up so that once you grabbed it, it was in your hand till you were through. We'd keep these under the front seat. Necessity is the mother of invention. We would go to bars, take cue balls and put them in two socks. Girl, it takes ass to whip ass—if you're gonna take a piece of mine, I'm gonna take a piece of yours. Some of the girls would match the socks to whatever they were wearing. Had to be flashy!“]

[boyscoundrel]

I had the honor of meeting Miss Major earlier this year and getting to thank her for her work 🥺 I wish I could’ve thought of more to say, but I was so awed by her presence.

Another person asked her how trans people can protect ourselves in these times.

Without skipping a beat, she told us we needed to remember to put our thumb on the outside, not the inside of our fist, when throwing a punch. That way, our thumbs won’t break. I was so grounded by the physicality in her response. No dancing around ideas and civility: our community needs to physically fight for our right to survive. We need to know how to defend ourselves.

She also said, “FUCK EM, we’re still here.”