NJ

29yo trans man, San Francisco, CA. finally decided to make a blog where I can save whatever I want. Art blog @njbice

[birdadjacent]

I just finished up a shift working in the woodshop so here's my ranking of the tools I generally use, by how much they want to hurt me:

Planer: the planer is a reliable and gentle friend. It has many sharp spinning blades, but they are deep inside the machine, so you have to try to get hurt by the planer.

Table saw: it is like the ocean: huge, powerful, the source of all life. Respect it. Don't turn your back on it. It does not want to hurt you but it's impossible not to be constantly aware of the fact that it Can.

Chop saw: when you're doing a bunch of simple repetitive cuts, it is so so easy to get into a flow state. But watch out! That's its plan. Come onnnnn get carelesssss put those fingies ever closer to the blade to stabilize the wood better its fiiiiine.

Band saw: band saw! Perfect power tool for putting your fingers 1/8 of an inch from! A helpful and quiet tool the band saw :) so quiet you might not even notice it's turned on! Put fingers close to blade, safe with band saw. Friend band saw :)

Belt sander: OW

Hand saw: not only craves blood but actively seeks it

Router table: He appears to me in my dreams, dark and bloody, singing his piercing song. My destruction is his sweetest wish. I am too scared to use him unless I absolutely have no other choice. The rest of the time, I go out of my way to unplug him even if I'm on the other side of the shop.

[azspot]

“Because the truth is, tech doesn’t have an image problem. It doesn’t have a message problem. It has an intention problem. What’s wrong with the axe murderer who broke into my house is not that he hasn’t successfully persuaded me to buy into his narrative. What’s wrong is that he’s trying to kill me with an axe. Similarly, when you launch a product that’s designed to put millions of people out of work, block access to sources of verifiable truth, replace human creativity with slop, and lower the barriers to every sort of atrocity, the problem isn’t that you haven’t told the public a good story about those things. The problem is that you are trying to do them.”

— The 40 Most Rage-Inducing Problems in Tech

[santhipoma]

[dogposts]

went a little overboard on our costume this halloween

[dogposts]

I'm spoiled for the first reunion in a week ... 🐶🐱 (via)

[genderoutlaws]

Gilbert Baker helps hoist one of the two original rainbow flags created by the decoration committee for San Francisco Gay Freedom Day | 1978 | ph: James McNamara, lead seamster of the flags

[songs-of-the-east]

Sworn Virgins of Albania

“Sworn Virgin” is the term given to a biological female in the Balkans who has chosen to take on the social identity of a man for life. As a tradition dating back hundreds of years, this was sometimes necessary in a society that lived within tribal clans, followed the Kanun, an archaic code of law, and maintained an oppressive rule over the female gender. Young girls were commonly forced into arranged marriages with much older men in distant villages. The freedom to vote, drive, earn money or own property was traditionally the exclusive province of men. A family suddenly without a patriarch or male heir would find themselves in jeopardy of losing everything. As an alternative, a daughter could become a Sworn Virgin, or “burnesha”, elevating her to the status of a man and granting her all the rights and privileges of any man. In order to manifest the transition such a woman cut her hair, donned male clothing and sometimes even changed her name. Most importantly of all, she took a vow of celibacy to remain chaste for life. As modernization inches towards the small villages nestled in the Albanian Alps, this archaic tradition is increasingly seen as obsolete. Only a handful of Sworn Virgins remain. As a portrait photographer with an interest in subjects that innately speak to the diversity of the human experience, I was fascinated with this story. This is historically one of the few examples of socially accepted gender change and it is rapidly disappearing. My desire to record the sacrifice, context and experience of these women/men set me on course to seek out some of the last burnesha. I was rewarded with a small collection of people who possess an indescribable amount 0f strength and pride, value their family honor above all else, and have few regrets for all they have sacrificed. Furthermore, their absolute transition is accepted, posited and taken without question by the people among whom they live. Photographing them was my greatest privilege.

- Photography and text by Jill Peters

[codenameregnar]

idk if anyones posted this yet but here’s the reddit mega thread for fake ds9 title screens

some of my personal favorites

[its-emimi]

Happy Pride month! 🌈

[theweight]

this orange was pregnant. Isn’t the world amazing

[smbc-comics]

Just a reminder that I am available for commencement speeches, birthdays, and Bar Mitzvahs.

Check out the bonus panel on the site.

───── ◆ ───── ◆ ───── ◆ ─────

SMBC ◆ PATREON ◆ INSTAGRAM ◆ BLUESKY ◆ STORE

Buy this comic as a print.

[dailymanners]

I feel as though what drives most rude / inconsiderate behavior I experience IRL on a day to day basis comes from a place of having this unearned and unnecessary sense of urgency in situations that aren't actually urgent. I think if more people became aware of this completely unnecessary sense of urgency in situations that actually aren't urgent, it might make co-existing and sharing public spaces with other people a lot easier and more tolerable.

That text post that's been making the rounds that goes something like "Omg you made it to the same red light as everyone else but faster and more dangerously and recklessly, should we call nascar? Do you want a medal?" summarizes exactly what I'm trying to talk about.

It's like when I have to change buses at one of the bigger and busier bus stops, and the people who get off the same bus as me shove and elbow past me to get off before me, and then shove and elbow past anyone even slightly in their way on the way to the bus they're switching to, only to end up on the same bus as all the people they shoved and elbowed, with several minutes to spare before it leaves and plenty of open seats left.

I think this unnecessary urgency a lot of people feel in their day to day lives drives a lot of bad behavior. I'm not saying I'm innocent of this (is anyone's?), I've felt it too in plenty of situations that didn't call for it, and regrettably was less kind than I should have been as a result. But I try to be aware of it, and always try to ask myself it it's really as urgent as my lizard brain is trying to tell me it is, and even if it was urgent, does that still justify unkind behavior?

Is shoving or elbowing another person aside going to make the difference between whether or not you make it to the bus before it pulls away? (hint: at least where I live, most of the time that's a no because the drivers usually won't leave if they see people from another bus heading towards their bus). Is shoving and elbowing people aside in a crowded grocery store going to make any real difference in how quickly you get your shopping done?

Does a few extra seconds of time actually justify cruel and unkind behavior towards people you perceive as slightly inconveniencing you?

[dailymanners]

A few more examples of this phenomenon:

- Waiting in line at the store and the person behind you creeps closer and closer to try to pressure you forward, and ends up violating your personal space and making you uncomfortable, because they think creeping closer and pressuring the person in line in front of them will somehow get them through the line faster (it won't)

- Going through a self-serve buffet, and the person behind you keeps creeping closer and closer to try to pressure you to serve your food faster and get a move on. All it achieves is that you can't scoop your soup without elbowing them, and that's somehow your fault

- Crossing a crosswalk when the car waiting for you to cross creeps closer and closer to you to try to intimidate you into crossing faster (because using a 2 ton metal machine to try to intimidate a fleshy little ape you could easily kill with said 2 ton metal machine isn't acting like a bully at all no sir-ee)

- Honestly a huge heap of the poor treatment of service workers is also rooted in this sense of urgency in things that are not actually urgent

Please do feel free to add more examples if you can think of more examples

[dailymanners]

To everyone in the notes saying they've never, or very rarely, feel this urgency: you are so powerful, please don't change, and I hope your powerful disposition can spread to more people.

[teaboot]

There is a reality not so far from our own in which Ratitouille (2007) was filmed as an avant-garde conceptual horror akin to Eraserhead (1977)

[teaboot]

There is a young American man in France. His mother has passed away. He has few friends, and works the thankless job of a bus boy in a prestigious restaurant, but dreams of becoming a chef despite having very little skill.

He returns one night to his humble apartment, which is known to have vermin, and comes across a rat, which he could easily kill or set loose on the street.

But the rat- it is special. It seems to speak to him. Promises him every little thing he desires- talent, fame, and fortune. Recognition and esteem like he has only ever seen from afar; fine company like the wealthy men and women whose scraps he picks at over the sink.

Put me on your head, the rat says. Put me on your head and think of nothing.

It is strange at first, yes. Strange to feel another take control of his life and live it better than he ever could. To see miraculous things created with his own two hands, to feel his feet move in graceful and fantastic ways with a confidence he has never had.

But the rat delivers as he had promised: he receives promotions, notoriety, admiration. He is noticed. Envied. Every day is a waking dream, rubbing elbows with beautiful women and handsome men and influential personalities who lavish him with praise. It is addictive, this lifestyle- never mind that he is only ever truly conscious of it as a passenger of in own brain.

It is when he has reached heights few can ever conceive, with all that the rat had ever promised- a beautiful wife in a beautiful house with all the world in his palm, in possession of all the wealth and success a man could ever want, that the rat says that it is leaving.

Leaving? The rat cannot leave. Everything he is, the rat has provided.

"I have delivered on our bargain", the rat says. "I have brought to you all that you have ever dreamed. What more could you desire? I must live my own life, now."

The man is furious. He is terrified. He destroys the rat, in all of the ways that a rat can be destroyed, until nothing is left of it but a fine smear of marinara sauce.

He returns to the restaurant the next day moving like the shell of something hollowed-out and brittle. He cooks well- his fingers remember the movements, his eyes recognize the patterns, his mouth know without his asking what orders to speak and what platitudes make patrons smile pleasantly with their straight white teeth.

He retains the talents of the rat. The charm of the rat. All the worldly pleasures the rat had provided him.

Still, it seems, he is little more than a vessel for the talents of the rat.

But the rat is gone.

What remains of the man?

[sherdnerd]

I like to think that once, early on in his tenure as captain, Picard asked the replicator for simply Tea, Earl Grey without specifying hot, and he was given a glass of iced tea. He never forgave the enterprise for this and has always been very careful with his order since

[quietwingsinthesky]

did i tell you guys i failed at being sexually harassed at work today?

[quietwingsinthesky]

okay so, guy at work, who i find out afterwards is famous at this place for being a sex pest, comes up and starts with what i also learn is his favorite opener to conversations where he’s going to be a sex pest, namely: “Do you know where the term ‘blow job’ comes from?”

and here he made his first fatal error. his moment of hubristic sex pesting. because of course i know where the term blow job comes from, i love learning about sex and the history of sexual terms! i know so much about oral sex that i could write a book on it!

his second error: approaching a little autistic freak with what he intended to be an uncomfortable sex question that would make me feel weird and gross. Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I Have Never Misjudged A Man’s Intentions So Incredibly In My Life. because i did not realize he was trying to harass me. because i love talking about sex facts, albeit not usually at work. unless. someone prompts me. my coworkers are the kind of people who are generally online enough to know terms, but not exactly what they mean, and they realized they could ask me a while back and get good answers without the resulting awkwardness because i do not experience shame. i am primed to answer questions like the one he has proposed.

So I Answered It.

and well, really, what happened is that I began answering it, then realized the answer required a bit more context. I mean, you can’t just say “oh, well, the term first appears in writing in the 1940s” without first explaining that ‘blow’ by itself already had sexual connotations for centuries, and then, really, are we talking about the origin of the term or the origin of the act. and well we have a ton of literature and art depicting fellatio throughout human history, did you know a lot of it was men performing it on other men? oh, that reminds me, there are a multitude of latin words for oral sex performed on penises, and hold on let me quote you the entirety of catullus 16 from memory and explain it’s fascinating insights into the roman world of homosexuality-

i do not know how to turn any of this ^ off, by the way. i’m sure some people out there have a switch that disables their infodumping mid-speech. i do not. and i also didn’t realize he wasn’t looking for a real answer until my other coworker explained so hours later. he could not excuse himself from the conversation he started, and i made a conservative man at least 30 years older than me to listen to my catullus recitation. i will sodomize and facefuck you, indeed.

anyway, i think i got a bad grade in being sexually harassed. my pro tip is maybe don’t start with what a very autistic individual will misconstrue as you earnestly asking them to explain sex to you. the special interest shield will cause splashback damage.

[i-speak-graffiti]

🫵 HEROES in the tags

[catcrumb]

[paksthestoic]

star trek voyager characters on Open Mic Night in the mess hall.

Tom Paris: organized it. roped people into it. claims the first slot. spends his five minutes telling jokes like “I just flew in from the New Zealand penal colony and boy are my arms tired!!”. polite chuckles all around because he leans into telling awful jokes.

Harry Kim: technically perfect jokes delivered with too much nervous laughter until tom starts heckling and suddenly his five minutes is all crowd work

Tuvok: Tom did not expect him to agree, but Tuvok delivers a series of deadpan riddles and knock knock jokes to devastating effect. runaway success of the evening.

Chakotay: was NOT going to participate until the captain teased him about stage fright. observational humor, the type of person to pick someone out of the crowd and deliver his material directly to them.

Neelix: a TIGHT five entirely on leola root. stuns the crew with his self-awareness, makes them all wonder if he’s been inflicting Leola root on them for the Laughs this whole time

B’elanna Torres: does alright until tom also decides to heckle her. she throws the mic at him, chaos ensues, she does not complete her five minutes.

Seven: her jokes themselves are not funny. What gets people is when she informs them they may proceed to laughter. Similar to Harry in that they are technically perfect jokes. Some nervous chuckles, most people are relieved when she leaves the stage.

Kathryn Janeway: has been having a Good Time watching her staff do this, very alarmed when Chakotay says turnabout is fair play and she ought to get up on stage. no structured jokes, tells anecdotes from childhood/the academy that get laughs because for some reason people on her ship think she is straight laced and she’s always been That Reckless. Probably leaned up against a lectern or piano or something with a glass in her hand like Frank Sinatra the whole time.

The Doctor: demanded to “save the best for last”, absolutely distraught when people start yawning and getting up to head out. his fault for turning his five minutes into fifteen on the history of the commedia dell’arte style of improvisational theater

[draconym]

I saw the most incredible dog at the farmer's market.

Please everyone guess what this dog's pedigree is. (My guess was incorrect)

[draconym]

This was my guess as well. It is something else.

[draconym]

Congratulations to you!

This is a Dachshund / Samoyed

[draconym]

Yes it was an accidental litter