Just a blog for reposting things I like

Massive bookworm, nerd and historian

[selfundiagnosed]

SZA receiving an autism diagnosis is going to be healing to so many undiagnosed girls, but especially for a group of girls who are even MORE unlikely to be diagnosed—black girls! I am so beyond proud of SZA for getting evaluated and sharing this update with us because its going to change so many lives. I barely know any celebrities who have been open about having an autism diagnosis. I havent seen anyone on tumblr post about SZA’s post which could be a problem with my curation of who i follow but i wanted to share this awesome news with my followers!

[thelooniemoonie]

Since it's mid-august it's time for a reminder for the DIY folks or those who like to cosplay

[thelooniemoonie]

It's about that time of year again, and after having this circulate for a year now, it interesting seeing some observations:

Despite making this post in August, this post spikes in brief periods throughout the year, depending on when folks like to start.

Reading all the cool costume projects people are working on

Some of you animals reblog this on November 1st

[athena5898]

(Tabz)

Israel is funding a $46.5 million campaign, led by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, to influence how AI chatbots discuss Israel by publishing hundreds of pro-Israel articles across a network of websites designed largely for AI systems, not human readers, according to Drop Site News.

The campaign explicitly targets “GPT conversations,” with AI tools already citing these sites, including Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, and sometimes ChatGPT and Claude, in responses about Gaza and U.S.-Israel relations.

[crevicedwelling]

location: moss oasis, endless barren waste

known for: moisture, spores, mite farming

[bogleech]

They say there are other worlds out there beyond the stone sea, but I think that's stupid nonsense.

[busket]

queer rep goes thru these cycles where every couple of years lgbt people are like "we get no rep in media and the representation we do get is way too sanitized and it feels so fake and flat. wheres the queer characters that are messy and flawed and REAL??"

then someone gets brave and makes a character who is a real bastard and makes all the wrong choices and is maybe even malicious at times and they make this character explicitly queer. and then fans are like "this is what you think of us?? worst representation ever" and the creator gets absolutely lambasted, ESPECIALLY if theyre queer themselves

then everyone else sees this and either thinks its too risky to include a queer character, or wants to make sure they're only doing the good and nice representation with no flaws or mistakes

then queer people are like "we get no rep in media and the representation we do get is way too sanitized and

[busket]

and no im not blaming queer people for our own lack of representation, or when "representation" exists only to mock us and shame us. I am however saying: stop attacking queer creators for making queer characters who are nuanced and complicated and even ugly or cruel. theyre not reflecting you, their character isnt you. its just their character

[sreegs]

gonna start making snopes-style responses to urban legends about tumblr

[sreegs]

"this how we lost post editing and it was still worth it"

❌ False

The John Green Cock Monologue, while one of the most egregious examples of post editing, was not why the ability to edit posts was taken away. This feature was removed because scammers would edit posts with huge note counts to try to make their scams look legit.

[sreegs]

"those are his hooves, bitch."

✅ True

Those are his hooves, bitch.

[radicalgraff]

"No matter how bad it got, at least I never idolized a billionaire"

Poster spotted in Melbourne

[horreurscopes]

never forget the universal rule of the order of things: People Will Not Read It

[horreurscopes]

signs at stores? émail? menu ?? instruction ? post online ? caption with andswer to question ? group hand outs ??? street sign ??? no. The Written Word Is The Enemy

[lasrina]

#The number of compliments i have gotten for reading a thing

The ability to occasionally Read A Thing will make you a hero in your workplace, especially if it is for example an error message that tells you what you need to do differently, or instructions on unjamming a printer.

[stephaniematurin]

how dare you say we put jam in the printer

[berkelbites]

Ok reblogging this again because story time.

I work in tech, and much of what I do is support sales reps within the company by resolving errors with the software they use.

There is one sales rep who, every single time I send her a message or email with extremely specific instructions that will resolve her issue, does something completely different from what I tell her. Every time. Without fail. It is so glaringly obvious that she has never read even a single word that I have written to her.

So one day, she sends me a message that says little more than "(software) is broken, help"

So I do my standard song and dance of asking her what she's trying to accomplish, and what specifically is stopping her from doing that. And eventually, after much unnecessary back and forth, she tells me there's an error message. I ask her to send me a screenshot of the error message. She does.

The error message basically says, "these two required fields are blank. To resolve this, please fill in these two specific fields, and then click save."

So I take a few deep breaths.

Then I lie to her.

I message her back, saying "hey yeah, for some reason it's not loading that screenshot on my end. Could you type out the full text of the error message for me?"

She does.

I ask her if she still needs help.

She does not respond.

[samueldays]

I have similar story from tech support.

Client is reporting that Some Thing Program doesn't work. I ask if there's an error message with further information about what's not working. Client says "no". I go over and ask Client to open Some Thing. Client double-clicks on the icon for Some Thing, it starts to boot, an error message dialog flashes up on screen, Client closes error message before I can read it, Thing closes after the error.

"What did that error message say?" I ask.

"What error message?" asks Client.

I tell Client to open the Some Thing again and then not click anything else. Client opens Some Thing, error message appears, Client clicks it away again.

I tell Client to stand up, step away, and give me physical control of the computer. I open Some Thing, start looking at the error message without closing it, and Client says "You should close that." I tell Client that I am reading the error message. Client is apparently accustomed to treating error messages as a kind of spam email that should be deleted as fast as possible, and gets agitated that I'm reading it.

I read the error message. It tells me what the problem is. I fix the problem. Some Thing works now.

---

Later, I start thinking about how such an error message might perhaps be engineered to be more attention-grabbing and close-resistant as a way of making people read it. It's not important for some random program here, but there are more important systems (medical, etc) where it would be reasonable to demand the user's attention because people's lives depend on paying attention to the error message.

But then people with a perverted intellect would still be thinking about ways to avoid reading the message, like dragging it off edge of screen or hiding it behind another window. So maybe the dialog box could have an always-in-front feature to override other windows, and the alert could use the computer's hardware "beep" functionality that can't be switched off by muting the regular sound system, and keep beeping... shit, I realize I'm reinventing pain, and get philosophical about it.

[doccyuk]

Story from The Past about My Mum:

She was a computer programmer / analyst, a... Long Time Ago. Called in for a system she'd installed before, the office folk said they kept having problems where it Didn't Work Right (no error, a malfunction)

She investigated, and told them that could only happen if they did 3 specific things in a specific order, which they should not ever do.

So, she asked, did they ever do that?

No! Of course not, was the answer.

So she made a couple of small changes, packed up and said that should be fine, but they should call her if there were problems.

The next week

She had a call saying "We're getting a strange error message on the system, can you help?"

She said, of course, can they tell her the error?

And the message was:

"You Said You Didn't Do This"

[hellenhighwater]

Oh no

[hellenhighwater]

Just got home. After six hours in the house with the cats, this bird is fine and has, in fact, found Her Spot.

I opened the door and very politely chased her out.

They're both fired.

[hellenhighwater]

There's FUCKING TWO PF THEM

[hellenhighwater]

This one has definitely had a rougher day but he's still flying okay, and I caught him and let him go outside. Now it's time to inspect the whole house for wrens. I've been so agitated that Malice caught the zoomies, and since it's 88 goddam degrees in the house, she's worked herself into a froth and is lying in front of the AC and panting like a demon. And I reviewed the cameras and caught Vice birdwatching.

[thenextdraft]

Consequences Are for the Poor

[horce-divorce]

"I would never jeopardize the beans" pales in comparison to it's newest successor, "beans r not woke. How could u do this?"

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was taking a photo of myself in the elevator mirror and

Tell me

Why is my friend judging me from the reflection 😂

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[totostales]

I thought it was this guy

[thesituation]

my 100% failproof way to handle reactionaries asking why i don’t shave at all is going “because i don’t want to” it works because what they really want is an argument about the merits of feminism, and they’ll draw it out and try to convince you it’s a cult or whatever, but you can avoid it all by sticking to “i just don’t wanna. don’t feel like it” and if they argue with you about it you can use your ultimate ability, which is “i’m sorry i thought it was a free country?” which, believe me, they cannot come back from. they’ll either drop it or start harping on something you didn’t say, and it’s important you don’t take the bait at that point. when they can’t argue with what you say, they assume your beliefs and attack those. and you crucially must be visibly baffled at their change of direction because it will make them seem and possibly feel crazy (which they are). “i don’t want to shave” is a perfect response because truly it all comes down to autonomy and the ability to do what you want. they’ll try to say “feminism makes you think you have to do that” and it’s important to not take that bait. to reiterate that you don’t know what they mean and you just don’t like shaving and that it’s really weird to look into it that deep. this works i promise

[hellenhighwater]

NOT A WORM. I REPEAT. NOT A WORM

[hellenhighwater]

The mouse was still alive--which is the problem with orphaned kittens that grow up without adult cats, they know how to catch but not how to kill--and Vice took us on a scenic goddam tour of nearly every room in the house before I got him back out to the catio with the mouse, which promptly ran off. And now he's mad at me.

No mice for Vice.

[hellenhighwater]

From my buddy Tem:

[escuerzoresucitado]

[the-muppet-joker]

Someone is getting executed during the next Dash Con? Heh. I almost feel bad for the next sorry soul on the receiving end of Public Dashcon Murder. What they don't tell you is that you die for real, and that you only come back if you Come Back Wrong. Also that your soul is tethered to the Ballpit, and it hates the husk you have become and will kill you on sight, so you can never go back to Dash Con again. Le Sigh! Guess I will be buying a Virtual Ticket!

[xiranjayzhao]

Can confirm. Robespierre came back very, VERY wrong.

[thatdamnokie]