Rain Pitter-patters

ace lesbian (?), early 30s || Some things I like: spinning in the rain, finding cozy places to read, general nerdery, hugs. I'd be happy to talk to you (...though I'm not good at checking for messages)! Hope you have a nice day~

[ains-art]

An attack i really like 😌 for fireyarts on Instagram, of their beautiful irl dog Lia!

[mankillercalledbunny]

I remember in late 2016 my dad telling my class about being a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi in 1994. He was almost 30 at the time. He'd been born in 1964, the year Malawi gained its independence, and it had been under a single-party regime ever since. Resistance had built to a significant point by the time Dad was there. There was violence, they heard about people being disappeared, he remembered seeing tanks rolling down the street.

And then there was a vote. Voting whether to keep the single party and the dictator-president, or to form a multi-party system and have real elections for the first time in the country's history. Now Malawi, at the time, was the poorest country in the world, had the lowest life expectancy, an extremely low literacy rate, and they knew something had to change. People turned out in droves. Lines through towns. It was on paper, and in order for everyone to get a chance it took more than a week just to collect them all, never mind count them, and there was one option. Vote for open elections, or for the single party system. Because not a lot of people could actually sign their names, they'd stick their thumbs on ink pads and stamp their thumb print in the big box on the paper for their choice. For many of them it was the first thing they'd voted on, ever. Dad said people would keep their black-inked thumbs for as long as possible. It was a mark of pride, he said. They'd voted. They'd had their say, and it mattered. And when all the votes were in, they had to wait even longer for the results, and it was the most tense few weeks he'd ever experienced.

And then they announced the results.

I will never forget the tears in my dad's eyes more than 20 years later as he said, choked up and smiling:

"We danced in the streets."

Malawians had enacted a democratic revolution, and the country voted for open elections and a free democracy.

I still get choked up thinking about it.

Since 1994, they elected a woman president who worked to eliminate child marriages in the country and get country-wide malaria prevention and vaccine programs in place. They're working to protect Lake Malawi and improve their economy. As of last year, they've cut their child mortality rate from 1 in 4 to 1 in 25. They've made incredible progress in the last 30 years.

It is possible to overcome this and do it with democracy. It has happened before. We can do it. We will make it through. And we will dance in the streets.

[spaceportfloozy]

The Nigerian Job.png

[kiralamouse]

I honestly wonder if the Leverage crew could’ve coalesced without Alec Hardison, the one (1) member of the crew who doesn’t have mile-high-and-thick emotional walls.

[mackthecheesy]

[smol-warrior-1258]

See the thing about leverage is that Hardison, Eliot, and Parker are all somehow the lynchpin personality but Hardison is the lynchpin of that trio so like they’re not wrong

[subjectsix]

I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!

[ofchaosgoddess]

<insert abt five paragraphs of complaining whining moaning and other misc misery here>

and with that all out of the way, time to start spindle #2 of this project

[ofchaosgoddess]

oh I do not like this spindle shaft, it is too long and too slick, so I’m going to try to fix that

[ofchaosgoddess]

sandpaper and saw to the rescue indeed!

The length is much improved! Still needs a couple more sanding passes but I’m pretty happy so far.

[auressea]

thanks for this REMINDER - we can modify our things! we can alter and customize our tools! (I keep forgetting i don't' need to struggle)

[botchallthethings]

If I may? In a fit of inspiration, frustration, and compulsion, I decided to move my favorite spindle whorl onto a longer shaft with a nicer hook, and swap that shaft's original whorl to a shorter, more-appropriate-to-be-wonky shaft (the whorl is fine but it's not as symmetrical/balanced as I'm used to, and is a little light for the shaft it was on).

The final result:

(I'm much happier using both)

[lena-luthor]

they really gave us a female lead in a star wars movie & made her kind and good and angry and powerful and complex & then spent the next 2 movies revolving almost her entire storyline around a white male war criminal who abused her, abused her friends, abused her family. all the while validating all the people who romanticized gaslighting and torture. for fan service lmao 

[pajamboree]

they also gave us a strong black male lead who was kind and rebelled against his entire way of life when he saw the atrocities he was expected to take part in. He risked his life to save others and was shown to love and care deeply for his friends and willing to sacrifice himself to save him. Then the next two movies infantilize him to be this weak self preserving side character with literally no agency beyond yelling other character’s names.

[celeritaschronicles]

They also gave us a Latino sci-fi hero who was an ace fighter pilot with a heart of gold and a wealth of courage who showed an incredible amount of support and kindness and trust towards a man who he had just met. Then the next two movies relegated him to being a chronic fuck-up and then ret-conned his ace pilot backstory in service of a racist drug dealer backstory to make him more like Han Solo

[contrivedchaos]

I don’t think people truly understand the scope of the damage Sony is about to do to physical media. They literally invented the compact disc. They are the reason why Blu-ray as a format won the HD wars over HD-DVD. They have gargantuan influence over manufacturing disc-based media. If Sony as a company stops making physical media for their next gen gaming consoles, this is going to affect movies and music as well. If you buy CDs, DVDs, or Blu-rays, those are next on the chopping block.

[contrivedchaos]

I do want to point out that about 10 years ago, there was one manufacturer still pressing vinyl records left in the U.S. But since the resurgence of this format, multiple pressing facilities have opened, or reopened, and now vinyl is the most common form of physical music on the market. CDs and cassettes are also making a comeback.

Sony claims it’s using sales trends as a reason to phase out physical games. Corporations do actually care about making money. They follow these trends. I’m not saying panic buy all the physical media right now, but when it comes to owning things you can hold in your hand, you have to actually buy them.

[scutellatebooted]

Support places like:

iam8bit

Limited Run

Strictly Limited

Super Rare

Red Art Games

Just For Games

Hard Copy

1print

Gamefairy

And more

All of these places produce smaller batches of (typically) Indie titles but also some big name games too. 8bit has a contract with select retailers as well (BestBuy and Gamestop for sure, but potentially others) to keep physical media alive, but ordering directly from them will always be better.

We as consumers have blocked Sony - and Microsoft - from pulling bullshit like this before. Don't go quietly. Dog on 'em on social media and put your money where your mouth is to buy games and other media physically wherever you can.

[movementnudge]

Movement nudge, hand mobility! 🙌

X

[ruffboi-mags]

1) do this even if you're under 40. seriously. I definitely should have been doing something like this for years and I only turned 40 a month and a half ago

2) if you're like me just now trying this going "oh god i've only done 15 and i think my hands are cramping" start lower than 30 and increase by 5 once whatever number you're doing no longer makes your hand cramp up. I can manage about 15 per exercise at the moment.

[creations-by-chaosfay]

If you're hypermobile, be especially gentle.

[preserving-tiktok]

[taraljc]

This is an awesome use of what is probably a master's degree if not a doctorate and I am 100% thrilled that she shared it even though it was embarrassing and she squeaked.

[liminalbeauty]

Thank you, adorable scientist, for making people's lives better.

[punchspeedchunk]

As an Australian, THIS WOMAN IS A FUCKING GODSEND.

[weaselle]

Californian (sup, fellow desert-havers) i've been using this since i saw it and it works so fucken good dude (i often have to put like 8 dogs in my car, so it's extra important my car isn't attempting to go super-nova when we get in)

[persbaderse]

before my egg cracked, i had noticed that trans people were often pro-accessibility and up-to-date on the needs of disabled people, but i hadn’t seen any inherent connection between the two (other than the obvious minority-looking-out-for-other-minority thing). but now that i’m trans and medically transitioning, and i have to constantly repeat myself while talking to doctors and nurses, and explain things about my own anatomy to medical staff who should already know this, and having every single problem i might have blamed on my “condition” so nothing i say is taken seriously, all of the sudden i have a little sneak peak into the life of someone who has to deal with this all the time. like shit bro, being disabled probably sucks ass, someone should do something about this

[persbaderse]

happy disability pride month, we all deserve autonomy and respect and access to medication

[gifsfromthecrows]

it's storming so I'm not getting the "outside after dark with the lights on inside" pic today but anyway. poscas and sharpie acrylic markers 👍

[creatingblackcharacters]

"In my workshops, I often ask people of color, "how often have you given white people feedback on our unaware yet inevitable racism? How often has that gone well for you?" Eye-rolling, head-shaking, and outright laughter follow, along with the consensus of rarely, if ever.

I then ask, "what would it be like if you could simply give us feedback, have us graciously receive it, reflect, and work to change the behavior?" Recently, a man of color sighed and said "it would be revolutionary."

I ask my fellow whites to consider the profundity of that response. It would be revolutionary if we could receive, reflect and work to change the behavior. On the one hand, the man's response points to how difficult and fragile we are. But on the other hand, it indicates how simple it can be to take responsibility for our racism."

Chapter 8, White Fragility- Robin diAngelo

[dungeonmastersdiary]

[alexaloraetheris]

We used paper cutouts glued to toothpicks and stabbed into erasers, but I like this idea better.

[inbabylontheywept]

For a college game, I used an entire box of candy canes as a size colossal monstrous zombie grasshopper, and then when it died I ripped the box open and used the candy canes as size large monstrous parasitic horsehair worms erupting from its corpse. Nobody actually wanted to eat them after that so I took them home and ground them into a powder with a pestle, intending to add it to my hot cocoas. But I didn’t wash the pestle very well last time after using it to crush garlic and chilis, so I accidentally made chili-garlic-mint powder and then I tried serving that cocoa at a later D&D sesh, and we were all baffled at why it tasted so horrible until I was like oh my god it’s the ground up zombie ass worms. I contaminated them with garlic and chilis. And the group was like YOU GROUND UP THE ZOMBIE ASS WORMS AND FED THEM TO US which seemed like a lot of fuss over what would have otherwise been free and delicious cocoa. Then after that before taking any snacks they’d ask did you perchance put any zombie ass chili-garlic worm powder in this?, and then refuse to eat until I said None.

Which they thought was very funny, even if I was slightly less amused, but I bided my time until they got tired of the joke and stopped specifically asking. Then I poured all the remaining zombie ass chili-garlic worm powder into a bag of party mix. The first guy to take a bite spluttered, and I laughed, and everyone said WHAT DID BABS DO, and I said THE WOOOORMS… YOU FORGOT TO ASK… OHMYGOD… and then I laughed so hard I actually cried. Derailed the start time almost an hour.

Oh that was a wonderful day.

[bonetrader]

A good, a neutral, and an evil DM. In this order.

[stimmy-weeb]

I call her Sew-phie 🪡

[Image ID: four gifs of someone holding a piece of embroidery art of the character Sophie from the anime film Howl's Moving Castle sitting at a table and sewing. The embroidery art has a mechanism which allows a person to manually crank a small rotating lever from behind the embroidery art, making Sophie's arm rotate, appearing as though she is really sewing with the needle and thread in her hand.]

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[cutecipher]

I believe this is the case being talked about by Silas P Silas:

[baronfulmen]

As in almost all cases, this isn't a case of a computer DELIBERATELY being made to discriminate, it's a case of a computer RECKLESSLY being made to discriminate. Which isn't even a tiny bit better, but is an important distinction for when we talk about the dangers of this kind of thing.

AI is trained off of available data. Available data is about the real world, where racism and sexism and all that shit exists. Unless you carefully put effort into making sure that bigotry is EXCLUDED from the training, it will by default be included.

We've known this forever. There is no excuse. They don't bother, or they do a shitty job at it, because they want to make more money and carefully curating your own custom dataset without racism in it is not only extremely difficult, but very expensive.

[english-history-trip]

King Alfred the Great’s lost remains 'found under car park', TV show researchers say

The long-lost remains of King Alfred the Great have been found buried under a car park, investigators claim.

Alfred died in 899, and his bones were repeatedly moved. He was buried in Winchester Cathedral until 1110, when his remains were moved to Winchester's Hyde Abbey, where they were interred before the high altar between the bodies of his wife and son. The abbey was demolished after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539, and the place was left in ruins. In 1866, during construction of a workhouse on the site, the English antiquarian John Mellor excavated the area, found what he thought were Alfred's bones and had them reburied at nearby St. Bartholemew’s Church. But in 2013, when archaeologists exhumed and carbon-dated the bones from St. Bartholomew’s churchyard, they proved to date from over 200 years after Alfred’s death - sparking Graham's interest and search. He said: "Whoever’s bones they were, they weren’t Alfred’s. So, I decided to discover what happened to them. "The quest has taken me 13 years.”

[lostinhistory]

shut up they did not find another goddamn king under another goddamn car park

[thewisewill80sbyers]

"long chapter, sorry guys!"

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"Here's a whole delicious cake I made only for you! Sorry that it's so big and delicious and makes you so happy, I made too much... 😔"