i know this means absolutely nothing to most people but basically all of the little web game things I've made recently (angels in automata, hex plant growing game, d.a.n.m.a.k.u., life music, sudoku land, the metroidvania style map editor, etc etc etc) are all entirely self-contained individual client-side html files that can be downloaded and run offline and have literally no libraries or frameworks or dependencies, because i'm an insane woman who enjoys hand coding my input handling and display code from scratch in vanilla js and having it all live in one single html file with the game logic and the page structure and the page style all just living and loving together side by side in a universal format that can be run by any web browser on any devixe. i'll even include image files as base64 data-uri strings just to keep every single asset inside the one file.
Sometimes it feels so tough growing up as a kid in the 90s because the older I get, the more it feels like everything's being slowly (quickly?) screwed over and there's nothing I can do
And then I remember 2000s+ kids are being born into a world that's ALREADY screwed over
So like... ok. I haven't researched this and I'm mostly thinking out loud, so forgive me.
I entered the working world in 2005. I had a few odd jobs for a few years and then finally just bit the bullet in 2009, got a job at a grocery storeas an inventory clerk. My job was to count surplus items in the backroom and update the counts. Additional responsibilities included helping stock the front end. I left that job in less than a year.
A friend of mine now works at the same chain, different location, same job title, in 2022. But where I shared that title with two other people, he's the only one with that job title. Additionally, there are less stockpersons, and he is often called out to the floor to help them, which impedes his primary job function. He is also expected to clean bathrooms and some other maintenance things that I cant imagine doing as an inventory clerk.
And I thought maybe it was just that his location is understaffed, but looking back on the past few years where I was expected to do everything (be the front end, the dispatcher, the manufacturer, the teacher, trainer, janitor, delivery driver, account handler... christ, how did I do all this?) I'm looking at the issue with fresh eyes.
I hear sometimes about the 'slim down,' where a lot of companies took on a trend of hiring less people than they need to cut down on the cost of labor, and I look at how fast a person can burn out at a job. And how many jobs are considered 'high pressure sales' when they dont need to be.
Like I'm looking at the possibility of starting a business and I'm looking at the jobs I've had that burned me out and why. And it's almost always been 'I was always juggling responsibilities because we needed more staff'.
Like it seemed like I was doing everything, but getting paid the same.
And I think about that backroom job, where occasionally i would have to help out the stockers on big days, but mostly my job was one function.
So when I hear someone bemoan that 'no one wants to work anymore' I just think... y'know, work ain't what it used to be. When you're working the work of 3.5 people because someone at corporate decided it was right and good to hire less people than they need because it saves them 20$ per hour per store, but you still dint get your bonus because shrinks too high or they didnt make the amount of money they thought they would or you gave too many coupons ONCE. And it's like they're actively trying to chase people away, and then threaten you with automation but they do t make work attractive enough for people to show...
Oh damn, the notes on this. Apparently it's not my imagination and y'all have lived some horror stories.
I feel like we should be able to do something about this. Like we should be able to say 'no' to lean staffing and we should have a say in what our responsibilities are.
I'm thinking about all the times i should have just straight up said something. Like I think I had it in my head that if I took on all the responsibilities in the shop, eventually I would be rewarded with higher pay. But it doesnt work like that anymore. The reward for digging the best hole is a bigger shovel.
That's no way to live, though. And I just put up with it like it was normal to be so tired at the end of the day that I couldnt move. Maybe I should have just said 'no, you do it' when they started making me work outside my title.
Because that took a serious toll on my mental health.
I HAVE A UNION JOB AND LET ME TELL YOU SOME THINGS
It is part time, contract, hourly, full remote. Because it's union? They have to offer me a minimum of 25 hours a week. If I *voluntarily* go under, that is on me, but they ALWAYS offer me up to that. If I ask for the hours, they HAVE to give them.
Overtime doesn't trigger until 40 hrs/wk... but any time spent on emails, spreadsheets, my timesheet, ANY admin task that's more than 15 min? I can bill for that. ALL training, meetings, etc? I bill for that.
I get holiday pay. Seperate from vacation, sick leave, personal time; if it's a federal or state holiday I *automatically* get 5 hours of pay for that day. Period. Unlimited. I got paid 5 hours to do nothing on MLK day and presidents day, no questions asked, nothing taken away from my other pay.
I get sick leave, vacation leave, "personal" leave (anything that isn't the former two -- like, "my friend had an accident and I need to drive them home"). I get health insurance, dental insurance, life insurance. I get access to the credit union. I get access to job search help if my position gets dissolved / I get laid off!
It costs about $80/month in union dues, but I MORE than get that back in terms of benefits and peace of mind, and it's automatically deducted from my paycheck.
as we are living through a new resurgence in unions, after they were systematically decimated for decades, people might ask ‘how do i join a union?’ or ‘how do i unionize my workplace?’. the IWW isn’t a union union in the sense that it will automatically give you benefits like the above. BUT it is the single best place to start if you want to begin unionizing your workplace, connecting with other workers (including prisoners), and generally learn about unions and the international labor struggle.
https://www.iww.org
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is a labor union representing workers worldwide. We are known for our high standards of democracy,
Whenever unions being destroyed comes up, some asshat's always like "but the duuuues" like, STFU. I'd HAPPILY pay the dues to not be fuckin exploited.
The slim down has affected everything. It's why most of the movie theaters around me are nasty, the retail stores are always a trainwreck, and you constantly have long wait times at restaurants and grocery stores. It's the captains, NOT the crew.
We were waiting for tires at Walmart, and they'd called someone to a section on intercom a buncha times and some ol fart customer was so offended "Why don't they send a MANAGER there???" WOMAN. It's WALMART. They do not hire the goddamn people! I get unreasonably pissed about this cuz too many people have no idea what work is actually like now and make dumbass complaints and harass workers, bitching at the wrong thing.
Food service has gotten way worse thank staffing slim downs, ghost kitchens and online ordering. Seriously, look up the ghost kitchens. Tons of big chains try to pass off hokey "local" sounding food on grub hub and door dash that comes straight outta IHOP and Applebee's. It leaves the people working those restaurants effectively running numerous restaraunts of the same kitchen for single restaraunt pay. Ghost Kitchens have come under serious litigation in Houston specifically for having such poorly maintained spaces, workers have gotten seriously hurt.
It is so fucked how we're conditioned into saying yes to everything till you end up doing 5 people's work under the false promise of a better future. It burned my careers and bridges to the ground. Don't make my mistakes. I'm hopeful that GenZ and the rest of the up and comers will continue to take less bullshit at work and justifiably cry on TikTok behind the service counter cuz work is NOT working.
More Perfect Union is an excellent YouTube channel doing fantastic labor journalism that I can't recommend enough.
So, "lean staffing" was mentioned above. Not only do I hate the practice, I hate the term... calling it "lean" implies that what you cut away was fat. That it was healthier for it. But what you cut was SLACK. And slack is what allows lines to tighten without breaking. I call it "taut" staffing. A taut line is a line under strain. Strain too long, and it breaks. Increase the tension and it breaks. A taut line is one that cannot absorb changes.
not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]
[ID: A page from a What If? book that reads, "In fact, the Moon — our faithful companion — would act to undo the damage Andrew's scenario caused. Right now, the Earth spins faster than the Moon, and our tides slow down the Earth's rotation while pushing the Moon away from us. (There's a footnote here, that says, "See 'Leap Seconds,' http://what-if.xkcd.com/26, for an explanation of why this happens.") If we stopped rotating, the Moon would stop drifting away from us. Instead of slowing us down, its tides would accelerate our spin. Quietly, gently, the Moon's gravity would tug on our planet..."
Here, the page has a comic of the Earth and Moon. There are four "panels" — there are no lines separating them, but there are four depictions of the Earth and Moon — and in each, Africa and Eurasia are shown on the Earth as the Moon spins around it. The Moon says, "Hey, Earth. Earth? Why'd you stop? / Oh no. Are you okay? Earth, are you okay? / Don't be scared, Earth! I can help! / I'm here, Earth. Your moon is here."
The text finishes, "... and Earth would start turning again." There is a final panel of the comic, where the Earth has turned, showing Australia, a bit of Asia, and the Pacific Ocean. The Moon tells the Earth, "I will never leave you." /end ID]
People who think Shakespeare wasn’t actually Shakespeare, but that ‘Shakespeare’ was a secret pseudonym for someone more important and better educated, like the Earl of Oxford.
I feel like I have to address this. I tried not to, but I actually think it’s really important. Most of the people who make the argument that ‘Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare’ are doing so on the basis that the real William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon simply didn’t have the literary wherewithal to have written what are now the most famous plays in the English (or possibly any) language. They like to argue that because Shakespeare’s family wasn’t particularly wealthy or influential, and that he never got more than the Elizabethan equivalent of a grade school education, he couldn’t possibly be as well-read or as eloquent as the person who wrote Hamlet, or Macbeth, or what have you.
The reason Stratfordians are so vehemently defensive of Shakespeare as himself is because (a) there’s literally no proof that he wasn’t exactly who we think he was and (b) we believe that it’s entirely possible that a man who was nominally ordinary became the world’s most famous playwright. If you take that away from him, you are doing the world a huge disservice, by reinforcing the idea that in order to have a significant impact on the course of history, you have to be wealthy or politically powerful or socially superior. I for one want to be able to tell any struggling middle school kid with average grades not to give up, because passion is more important than money or power, and he or she could be the next Shakespeare.
Yes. All of this. The Oxfordian authorship theory is rooted in classist, elitist attitudes that insist that a glovemaker’s son from Stratford-on-Avon who never left England couldn’t possibly have written 37 plays based simply on extensive reading and a great deal of imagination.
Also they have no conception of what “grammar school” actually means. A grammar school education in the sixteenth century usually included extensive study of rhetoric, philosophy, and history. Ben Jonson claimed that Shakespeare’s Latin was mediocre and his Greek nonexistent, but there were a wide variety of classical texts available in English translation during his lifetime and we can clearly see echoes of those translations in Shakespeare’s works.
Lastly, the Oxfordian theory is rooted in an 18th century forgery popularized by a man named Looney (pronounced Loh-ney, but WHATEVER). The best book I’ve seen on the subject is Contested Will by James Shapiro, which is marvellous and snarky and everyone should read it.
It’s the exact same logic that tries to discredit Mary Shelley as the author of Frankentstein, because a particular school of (white, upper class, male) critical thought can’t stand the idea that an eighteen year old girl could have written something so profound that it founded an entirely new literary genre.
They don’t like being confronted with the fact that great art is not the preserve of the ruling class.
Also, here’s another reason it matters: Shakespeare populated his plays with characters from all the social strata, from prostitutes to monarchs, and everyone in between.
The view of such people, their attitudes and foibles looks a lot different when you’re looking at them from the same level than if you’re looking down at them from above, with only a vague, abstract, view of what their lives are like.
Therefore, knowing that Shakespeare had come from “common” origins and worked his way into the patronage of King James by the time he retired, gives us a different understanding of his plays, and the history of the time and place in which he wrote them.
12.10.2019; i never eat breakfast, fasting in the morning makes me feel so much better during the day, but there was a looot of delicious fruit at home and i couldn’t resist.
it's a cloudy day today, which i don't know why motivates me a lot to work. i'm planning on studying arabic, applying for a thing and preparing my luggage to go back to paris next tuesday.
already well into november but i thought i’d post (with pdfs included of course) some things i read (& loved) in october b/c it was a hard month & these writings held my hand the whole way through
‘by grand central station i sat down and wept,’ elizabeth smart (!)
It seems to me that people tend to portray Hufflepuff as the house of sweetness-and-light. Hufflepuffs are eternally kind and caring and bake cookies for everyone. They bend over backwards to make everyone happy. They abhor violence and strife and value hard work for the sake of working hard. They are precious cinnamon rolls, too pure for this world.
That’s all well and good, but I want more nuance. Hufflepuff is the house that has canonically turned out the fewest dark wizards, but I don’t think it’s accurate to depict Hufflepuff as nothing but the cinnamon roll house.
Give me Hufflepuffs who despise hard work but do it anyway because somebody has to get everything done.
Give me Hufflepuffs who don’t trust easily and make you earn their loyalty, but will bring the world to its knees to avenge their loved ones.
Give me Hufflepuffs who are polite to strangers but will destroy somebody when they are wronged.
Give me Hufflepuffs who are the most caring people on the planet, but only to those who have proven themselves trustworthy beyond a doubt.
Give me Hufflepuffs who come off as coldhearted and mean because they show their soft side only to those who make them feel safe and loved in turn.
Give me stale cinnamon rolls whose loyalty is near impossible to earn, but who give absolutely everything to their chosen family.
And you know what? I want to see Hufflepuff villains, too.
Give me Hufflepuff villains who guard their loyalty so closely that they are horrifically cruel to everyone they don’t feel has earned it.
Give me Hufflepuff villains who are loyal to the bone and work themselves half to death, but for all the wrong causes.
Give me Hufflepuff villains who treat their inner circle like royalty, but who don’t care who else lives or dies.
Give me Hufflepuff villains who are vindictive and awful to those they see as lazy underlings.
Even if it started like one, “days like any other” do not usually involve strangers ripping away all your carefully-constructed barriers.
I am very late for my first meeting of the day. I slither into my clothes, grab my bag and gulp something for breakfast before I step out of the house.
There is a well-dressed man standing outside my door.
I smile politely at him in greeting, but he stops me as I pass.
“I’m on my way to X Hall,” he says. I cannot see his face - is it the glare of the sun? is it a hat? is it that I don’t want to? - but his voice and manner are warm and friendly. “But I’m afraid I’m slightly lost.”
“Well,” I say, “I’m on my way there now.”
“Oh! Can we walk together?”
I gesture for him to lead the way out onto the street. “It is not that far away.”
He smiles. I cannot see his face at all, but I can feel his smile. It is... unsettling.
We begin walking together. He starts the conversation with small talk about the weather, what the hall is like. It is his first visit, but he has heard how pretty it is, with its white exterior and warm interior. He asks a few questions: are there many people? Oh, quite a few, that’s very nice. Do you know many of them? Oh, wonderful. Are there any close friends? Real friends? The kind you can call at 3am to come help you if someone’s outside your house staring through your window?
I give him a look. He laughs.
The questions progress, the answers devolving into monosyllables. He is prodding and poking at parts of my life. I want to tell him to back away. This is none of his business. I do not know you, I do not want to anymore, and I want to keep these things a part of me and the people whom I choose to share them with. Out of discomfort, a twisted sense of decorum, and fear - if someone’s outside your house staring at you - I walk a bit faster, and say nothing about how I feel.
He reaches forward and curls his fingers around my wrist, and I lurch to a stop abruptly as I look down at his hand around mine.
Warmth and strength and an order I don’t quite understand are all things I register right before I do the pain. I look up at his eyes, but I still cannot see them, and my own switch back to staring at my wrist.
He’s peeling the skin of them off. Good lord does it hurt. He digs a fingernail underneath a vein, and he pulls up. The skin gives with a rip and a tear, and he picks at it with two fingers, peeling and peeling. I yank yank yank my hand to me, but he’s got my arm firmly, and he keeps peeling away.
“I want to see what’s inside,” he says conversationally.
“NO!” My voice pitches up high in the panic I feel, helpless as I am.
He tilts my wrist, frowning. A long twirl of skin peels off and around the curve of my arm, like an apple would. I shriek in terror and pain, but he ignores more, frowning hard. There is another layer of skin beneath.
He keeps going, peeling and peeling and peeling. I am struggling hard, twisting my arm and yanking and trying to scream. There are people, I know there are, they pass me by on the street. I scream for them to come here, to help me, as he peels another layer, but they cannot see me, they do not see me, they will not see me. They walk past me and they think She deserves it and I can see it on their faces-
I still cannot see his.
He peels more layers away from me. There is always another layer beneath.
I am horrified, struggling, desperate, crying: flaky, paper-thin skin, rubbery stretchy skin, soft and supple skin, iron hard and cracking skin, skin that starts to curl up and burn to ash when he detaches it from my body, skin that melts onto his hand that he has to rub away, and still he peels and peels and peels...
The blood drips onto the road. Drip, drip, drip, just like my tears drip to the time of my sobbing.
“This,” he says, dusting away the ash, and poking the metallic underneath. I flinch and he digs in and I howl. “This is all your fault. I just want to see inside!”
I cannot see his face.
I cannot get his hands off.
I turn to the people walking past me, people I know, people I love, people I thought loved me. People who have raised me, and taught me, and shared things with me, hugged me, kissed me, loved me, been loved by me. I call to them.
They each look me in the eye by reflex. They each turn away. Some cross the road.
I cannot see his face, but I can feel him grin.
He still peels, all my layers. I am sweaty and teary and bloody, and he is spotlessly clean.
Every time someone walked past me, they grabbed a small knife that lay on my pedestal and shaved off another little piece of me from the inside. Hollowing me out, shaving by shaving, until I was nearly all hollowed through.
The last person grabbed the knife, and stabbed through what remained of the middle of me. I folded in on myself.
The next person who came along had another knife in their hand, and they began hollowing out the inside of my head-
The end of January, 2019
why is it always crows or ravens in ya literature??? is it because they’re scary and foreboding?? you know what else is scary and foreboding?? geese. show some originality, give me a book with philosophical quotes about geese
Twelve-year-old Mosca Mye hasn't got much. Her cruel uncle keeps her locked up in his mill, and her only friend is her pet goose, Saracen...
...Saracen (the goose) had finished his barley and was happily chewing at the corner of a sheet that had been spread across a hedge to dry. He had once discovered a tablecloth, and ever since had been optimistic about the effects of dragging cloths off the top of things.
Saracen, dearly beloved friend of the MC, single-handedly capable of wrecking shops, accidental stowaway on ships, and goose.
why does this have 32k notes? it’s just a picture of a knife in a ranch bottle, is there some unspoken joke that 32 thousand people share? what is going on here, i dont get it. it’s just a fucking picture of a knife in a ranch bottle. is there some spiritual connection people have to this picture? is there some ominous and mystical reasoning that this has 32 thousand notes? do people reblog this because it makes them look like some indie blogger? or is there just something funny to this? someone please explain
