Howdy! not really sure what to put here, since it seems no one reads blog intros anymore but some quick info of me Native Texan, gaymer, married to the love of my life, amateur photographer (geekbearphotography) and working on making it into rallycross.
Japanese child actress Mana Ashida (little Mako) was embarrassed that she couldn’t pronounce Guillermo Del Toro’s name so he gave her special permission to call him “Totoro-san” instead.
As someone who was outed against my will LONG before it was safe for me to be out to my family, I’m gonna say this as loudly as I can:
You don’t HAVE to come out! To anyone! You don’t owe it to anyone. Nothing is more important than your safety. If it’s better for your situation to stay closeted, please do that!
Coming out should be a personal decision. It should be a choice you make because you feel you will be happier for it. It should be something you do when you believe it will enrich your life.
I'll let you in on a secret. I have a doctorate in education, but the field’s basically just a 100 years old. We don’t really know what we’re doing. Our scholarly understanding of how learning happens is like astronomy 2000 years ago.
Most classroom practice is astrology.
Before the late 19th century, no human society had ever attempted to formally educate the entire populace. It was either aristocracy, meritocracy, or a blend. And always male.
We’re still smack-dab in the middle of the largest experiment on children ever done.
Most teachers perpetuate the “banking” model (Freire) used on them by their teachers, who likewise inherited it from theirs, etc.
Thus the elite “Lyceum” style of instruction continues even though it’s ineffectual with most kids.
What’s worse, the key strategies we’ve discovered, driven by cognitive science & child psychology, are quite regularly dismissed by pencil-pushing, test-driven administrators. Much like Trump ignores science, the majority of principals & superintendents I’ve known flout research.
Some definitions:
Banking model --> kids are like piggy banks: empty till you fill them with knowledge that you're the expert in.
Lyceum --> originally Aristotle's school, where the sons of land-owning citizens learned through lectures and research.
Things we (scholars) DO know:
-Homework doesn't really help, especially younger kids.
-Students don't learn a thing from testing. Most teachers don't either (it's supposed to help them tweak instruction, but that rarely happens).
-Spending too much time on weak subjects HURTS.
Do you want kids to learn? Here's something we've discovered: kids learn things that matter to them, either because the knowledge and skills are "cool," or because .... they give the kids tools to liberate themselves and their communities.
Maintaining the status quo? Nope.
Kids are acutely aware of injustice and by nature rebellious against the systems of authority that keep autonomy away from them.
If you're perpetuating those systems, teachers, you've already freaking lost.
They won't be learning much from you. Except what not to become. Sure, you can wear them down. That's what happened to most of you, isn't it? You saw the hideous flaw in the world and wanted to heal it. But year after numbing year, they made you learn their dogma by rote.
And now many of you are breaking the souls of children, too.
For what?
It's all smoke and mirrors. All the carefully crafted objectives, units and exams.
WE. DON'T. KNOW. HOW. PEOPLE. LEARN.
We barely understand the physical mechanisms behind MEMORY. But we DO know kids aren't empty piggy banks. They are BRIMMING with thought.
The last and most disgusting reality? The thing I hear in classroom after freaking classroom?
Education is all about capitalism.
"You need to learn these skills to get a good job." To be a good laborer. To help the wealthy generate more wealth, while you get scraps.
THAT is why modern education is a failure.
Its basic premise is monstrous.
"Why should I learn to read, Dr. Bowles?"
Because reading is magical. It makes life worth living. And being able to read, you can decode the strategies of your oppressors & stop them w/ their own words.
The move follows an executive order issued last week by the White House urging the agency to secure consumers' rights to fix their own gadgets.
DURING AN OPEN commission meeting Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission voted unanimously to enforce laws around the Right to Repair, thereby ensuring that US consumers will be able to repair their own electronic and automotive devices.
The FTC’s endorsement of the rules is not a surprise outcome; the issue of Right to Repair has been a remarkably bipartisan one, and the FTC itself issued a lengthy report in May that blasted manufacturers for restricting repairs. But the 5 to 0 vote signals the commission’s commitment to enforce both federal antitrust laws and a key law around consumer warranties—the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act—when it comes to personal device repairs.
The vote, which was led by new FTC chair and known tech critic Lina Khan, also comes 12 days after President Joe Biden signed a broad executive order aimed at promoting competition in the US economy. The order addressed a wide range of industries, from banks to airlines to tech companies. But a portion of it encouraged the FTC, which operates as an independent agency, to create new rules that would prevent companies from restricting repair options for consumers.
Literally every single warranty I have ever read says “lol void if u tamper w/ this shit”
And you’re telling me that’s a rule violation the manufacturer can be reported for?!?!
[Image ID: a screenshot of a portion of text from the article linked in the first post that reads “the FTC is so encouraging the public to report warrant abuse–as defined by the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act of 1975, which prohibits manufacturers from telling consumers that a warranty is voided if the product has been altered or tampered with in someone other than the original manufacturer.” The text from “which prohibits” through to the end is underlined with red. End ID]
Yep! Those “warranty void if removed” stickers are not legally enforceable in the US. Companies still put them on because unfortunately most people don’t know about this. Best advice I ever heard for if you need to return a product that you’ve removed the stickers from:
Persistently insist that the stickers never were there. Act confused if you’re asked. You got the product like this, sticker-free. The eye of the law doesn’t see the stickers, so you didn’t either.
Today started off with Baxter and me going into the elevator for our morning walk, and the lady in the elevator taking one look at him, literally gasping, and exclaiming, "¡Que bellísimo!"
Sorry if you've already answered this. Someone on Facebook posted this as a Middle Egyptian translation of OK Boomer. Is it accurate?
Well, it’s certainly got the spirit!
The transliteration is as follows: isT zi iAw
isT is a non-enclitic particle most often meaning “while, as, in the meantime”. It can also introduce a number of clauses, but I’ve never seen it used in a way that comes close to “OK”, unless it’s as the compound isT-bw, “or not”.
The particle you want to use here is tiw, “indeed”.
zi means “man”, nothing amiss on that end.
iAw can mean both “old man” or as the verb iAwi (which is hieroglyphically spelled the same), “to grow old”. Without indications of verbs, however, I’d take this as the forner.
So basically what this says is, “In the meantime, old man man”.
IT’S READY! The Loving Reaperr Hardcover Book. We’ve been working hard on this book for months, there’s so much heart and soul in it. A collection of my comics plus a few unpublished ones. A total of 20 stories and some artwork. Pre-orderers get a surprise. Also, a portion of the proceeds will go to animal shelters and facilities. You can pre-order from August 15th, I’ll post all the necessary links and info here soon. Stay tuned :)
Disney has trademarked the names of a bunch of Norse gods.
This is not okay.
These gods do not belong to Disney. They do not belong to Marvel. They belong to themselves and themselves alone, along with all those who worship them as the deities they are.
Thor, Loki, Odin, etc., these gods were not thought up by anyone at Disney or Marvel.
Stan Lee knew how sacred these gods are to those who follow many different Pagan traditions, how sacred they are to Scandinavian cultures to whom they are so important.
My best friend follows the Norse gods. She will be so bloody offended when she finds out about this. These are her gods, this is her religion. These are the deities she worships, the gods she prays to, the traditions she follows. She enjoys the Marvel portrayals of these characters, but they are separate from the gods she believes in.
Disney is stepping on her religion in an effort to gain more and more money.
Stan Lee did not trademark these names. He understood their importance and their sacred meaning. He was respectful enough not to do this.
These names are not the intellectual property of anyone. Neither the original names in runes nor the anglicised names that are used in Marvel's works.
They were around well before us (a whole ass millennium before us), and they will be around well after the greedy bastards who have decided to trademark religious symbols are dust.
It should be common sense and common courtesy not to trademark the names of religious figures, which all of these gods and goddesses are, even if you do not believe in them.
mod is not christian but you would never see me trademark jesus ffs it crosses a Line
If you agree, please sign and share the petition. If you can, please chip in to get this petition everywhere it can possibly go.
It is f**king disgusting that Disney is doing this.
It needs to stop.
Stop Disney Trademarking The Names of Norse Gods
Oh, and one more thing.
FUCK DISNEY.
i want to throw up ive included a bunch of tags trying to get the norse pagans attention bc im sure they'll want in on this if u have an in with the norse paganism community on tumblr pls do tag everyone u can
im wondering now if they've done this to the greek gods too ughh that would show even more of a disregard for other people's religious views and past people's religious views ughhhh ok imma go look at the toilet bowl for a bit 😅pls sign it'd mean the world to me
Y'all, please, this is the silliest thing to panic over and you don't know how trademarks work
Trademarking a word does not mean that nobody can ever use that word, ever, and that Disney "owns" the word
You trademark things for specific uses and purposes. Disney is trademarking the word "Loki" for use in relation to its Marvel series. Because that's the title of the series. Meaning. You can't make another TV show titled "Loki." And a few other things related to merchandising.
Disney is not "owning" the name of a God so nobody else can use it for anything ever for crissakes
You aren't going to be sued by Disney because you have the name Loki in your freaking username on something
In fact, MANY companies hold the trademark "Loki" for use in certain purposes
Please stop panicking over stupid crap you don't know what you're talking about jfc
We didn’t start this war internet users have with ads - We might have moaned about banner ads, but it was only when they started making noises when we might be listening to music or a podcast or whatever, causing two sound sorces at once, that we started trying to block ads universally rather than just a specific type of ad (pop ups).
And since then ads have gotten worse - Actual malware rather than merely breaking one of the fundamental sins of web design - though shalt not autoplay anything with sound. And the more aggressive a website is with ‘please turn off adblock’ the less I trust it to bother to vet ads and advertisers to make sure they’re not installing malware.
Not to mention that the idea that avoiding ads is “freeloading” is hilariously backward. Advertisement is a transaction between the platform and the advertiser, the user has no obligation to provide the views/clicks the platform has promised. Using an adblocker isn’t freeloading in the same way that leaving the room to get a snack during a commercial break isn’t cheating the tv network.
Ok y’all, I work as a web developer and I’m here to tell you that you are 100% right and that it’s shit. SO I’m going to tell you how to get around websites that block you from using their website if you’re using an adblocker.
Every website uses a language called JavaScript; long story short it’s a website language that allows developers to do the crazy shit you see on websites. Now the easiest thing to do is to disable JavaScript to stop them from knowing you have an adblocker:
Oh no! I’m blocked from viewing the website. It would be a terrible shame if I were able to right click and select the “inspect” feature
Click the three dots in the top right and open the “Settings” Menu
And then scrolled down to “Debugger” and checked the “Disable Javascript Option”
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