wallacepolsom
tannertan36
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Three Goblin Art
PR's Tumblrdome
Keni
One Nice Bug Per Day
todays bird
Mike Driver
No title available
d e v o n
Monterey Bay Aquarium
almost home
Janaina Medeiros
Today's Document
Cosimo Galluzzi
Claire Keane
roma★
ellievsbear
if i look back, i am lost
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Indonesia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Chile
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Kingdom
@shtuphnie
I love the concept of Tooks. "Everybody in the Shire is very very businesslike and respectable and has no use for adventures except for this one entire family of mad lads who also run the municipal government"
The decision by the kings of Arnor to name the Tooks rightful thanes of the Shire was actually a 3000-IQ play by the Witch-King of Angmar to keep the Tooks far the fuck away from him
Ya gotta get 'em from where they'll least expected it
Little Plastic Jesuses in the Woods
Somebody left little plastic Jesus figures all over one of the woodland trails I like to walk. They have big, cartoonish grins, white robes, and brightly colored sashes in a variety of colors. I’ve been picking them out of knotholes and tree-forks for days, dropping them in the recycling bin by the parking lot.
At first, the whole thing just made me very angry. It wasn’t just litter; it was litter that felt like an invasion of my own sacred space with a cheap, mass-produced icon that felt like the sacredness-equivalent of empty calories.
Honestly, it made me furious, my rage directed at a kind of deeply American-feeling religiosity that is sold in packs of 72 for $29.99 (I checked). Religion as cheap, brightly-colored, disposable eyesores littered somewhere quiet and gentle and authentic. Religion that is colorful and easy and leaves a mess behind for somebody who actually gives a damn to clean up.
Perhaps worst of all, I suspected that somebody thought of scattering the little figures everywhere as a moral act.
I’m still not happy about it, but my anger has cooled through many walks and the imaginative empathy that always arises from my long contemplations. I reasoned that it was probably a child (encouraged by adults). I reasoned that I wasn’t always respectful of wild places when I was a kid. I reasoned that there is huge, institutional religious machinery at work that seems designed to shrink participants’ worldviews down to a pinhole.
So, my anger slowly resolved into sadness.
And I’m left hoping that whoever tucked trash all over one of my favorite woodlands meets with some moments of clarity and self-reflection. I hope they consider the real value of plastic sacredness sold in bulk. I hope they consider the usefulness of virtue expressed as litter. I hope they question who they expect to comfort or convert with mass-produced trash that smells of a chemical tang, trash abandoned to block sunlight from a tiny patch of moss or wedged in tree-bark like a pebble in a shoe.
I hope they awaken to the symbolism of dropping something inert and obstructive in a place that otherwise grows and breathes and provides.
Substack / Patreon
Hey, did y'all see this?
I saw this when running newpipe. But wait, it gets deeper. I clicked on the details buttons and it said as of today,we have 83 days left until Google rolld out this new requirement for apps inside and outside of the google play store. If any developer disagrees with their new terms and fees, they will be blocked!
I'll share some of the info below:
Looks like they're trying to nuke the remaining privacy and freedoms we have left on the internet.
What to do?
-Get your developer friends to not comply to their new guides
- Sign the open letter on the site and take action by checking out thwir full resources list on their website as well!
To summarize, this is all daunting especially when you feel all alone with unfair and inhumane regulations comming out faster than improvements ut we got this working together!
Share the link with your friends,family and anyone who will listen!
Your phone is about to stop being yours. In September 2026, Google will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with them.
Also, I wanted to add the wikipage and EFF statements about Keep Android Open Org so people can have a better understanding and more resources because I didn't give enough earlier and I will take that critique.
EFF and F-Droid have led 37 organizations in demanding Google rescind its mandatory Android developer registration policy set to take effect
I feel like not enough people realize that people under enormous strain act really really fucking Weird
If someone is doing things that don't make Sense, try to understand that it is entirely possible that their brain is probably under an enormous weight and fracturing under the pressure. People who have been stabbed will sometimes talk a circle around the fact that they've been stabbed because stress and shock prevent you from recognizing the distress you are in and what you need to do to seek help for it. PTSD will do this also. You will find yourself repeatedly jamming a bag of frozen fruit into the same spot in the freezer where it doesn't fit and keeps falling, over and over and over, focused on nothing but that bag. You will decide that a beanbag chair is 10000% necessary to your life. You will lose your entire shit because you stubbed your toe on a table and that means the whole setup of your furniture is wrong. These are largely harmless examples. People under strain will also hurt themselves and others. Cornered animals bite. And it doesn't heal the bite to go "Hey, are you okay?" But it might get you to an animal that stops biting, so you can start to heal. And before you had an animal that bit, you probably had an animal that kept doing shit you didn't understand as stress signals
Mental illness is Off-putting. Trauma and stress make people hard to be around. There are no perfect victims. If your framework for someone under pressure are people who cry photogenically at home in the bathroom or at night when everyone else is asleep and then wake up and act like they're fine then you will fail to recognize it when your coworker who's normally really nice suddenly blows up on someone for leaving forks in the company sink.
Everyone is going through shit. And it doesn't make it okay for them to treat others badly, but it also sometimes makes it difficult for them to recognize that they're treating you badly, like the person on the phone with 9-11 who no longer realizes that he's telling the operator about his day and not answering questions. When your friend of ten years who has a new boyfriend suddenly starts being a massive bitch to you about your weight maybe she's just being a cunt, or maybe she's internalized some bullshit. You don't have to take that, but you Can go "Hey, what the fuck?" And that is often more helpful than you realize. It is easy to assume that someone who does something cruel is acting with intent, but especially in cases where someone's behavior changed in a short span of time, they aren't, any more than the person who is convinced the beanbag chair is going to fix them.
You don't have to give people endless chances. But you should give them at least one chance. Because on your worst week, it's going to be you crying at your friend's birthday party because she ran out of chili before you got to have some, and you're going to want some grace for yourself.
All of this and also, sometimes you just cannot control your reaction even if it’s harmful or mean. Which also doesn’t make it acceptable to treat people poorly, but it does tie into the give people a second or third chance and communicate before deciding they’re just terrible now
I've read a few recently published books, and there's this recurring pattern where if anyone does anything bad and interesting, they have to later talk about it in a way that makes it clear that it was a misunderstanding/ justified/ not their fault, so they're still a good person. and if they have a disagreement with another character, they have to therapy talk it out, regardless of their background. it doesn't matter if this is a street urchin with three teeth who just stabbed and kidnapped someone, you will get eloquent sterile therapy speak that will smooth out any possible emotional tension. and everyone asks for permission before they kiss, and waits for a clear enthusiastic yes. again, doesn't matter the character's background or situation, they will ask "can I please kiss you," because if they didn't, that could get all yucky and uncertain, couldn't it? and if a character is from a rich family, they will hate being in a rich family, and hate wealth signifiers, and actually be all for class equality. and everyone is casually queer, without thought being put into how that would mesh with the society that is being described. like yes, this is violent class-based system obsessed with inheritance, but no, it's not actually a problem that the child they've coldly groomed to take on the family mantle is unwilling to beget an heir because of gay. the parents might be terrible, cruel and fascistic, but they're not homophobic! I don't know, it just seems like EVERYTHING that could actually be messy gets sanded and sanded until it's smooth as a shark, but the Fun Violence is allowed to stay, because bloodshed doesn't actually bother anyone or have any consequence apart from your rogue character shrugging and going oops, was that me? the rogue is still a good person though. if you think they're not, just wait for the two solid pages of introspection. and yes they started the book by slitting two throats, but that was fine. they will ask permission before hugging you.
There are many reasons for this that are braided together, but I'm going to be bold and say it: I think a lot of this has to do with rising illiteracy.
I just read a Fortune article the other day about the fact that some college students can't read a single sentence. One. They cannot parse the meaning of a single sentence. That's terrifying. (Here it is on Yahoo without the paywall, btw.)
The thing is that you do not have to be wholly illiterate to struggle with reading. About half of Americans have low literacy, meaning they read around a sixth grade level or less.
This puts publishers in a terrible position. They need to sell books to an audience that cannot read books made for adults but that doesn't want the simplicity of grade-school books. The books need real adult problems without the nuance, hence the therapy speak and the black-and-white thinking.
Another thing is that cognitive flexibility influences literacy, meaning the reverse is also true; cognitive inflexibility determines lower literacy. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to update your schemas or combine multiple pieces of information without being expressly told to do so. It also impacts whether you can identify the mismatch between what someone says and what they do, which is the gold standard way to avoid therapy speak.
Poor cognitive flexibility means you can't have messy situations, because then the reader doesn't know what to think. Everyone has to be sorted into Good Person and Bad Person, and if the Good Person does something that may seem Bad, then they become a Bad Person unless the text assures us that they are still Good.
You will see many positive Goodreads reviews for these books. I'm not saying every single person with a positive review for a book like that has low literacy, but it's more likely than not. The same thing that drives you insane is what compels other readers who can't handle more complex texts.
Basically what I am saying is that if you want something with nuance, as a reader or a writer, you probably need to seek out selfpub stuff. I know that a lot of selfpub is garbage specifically because of the lower barrier to entry, and a lot of good selfpub stuff is not highly rated because getting reviews takes time and energy.
(I'd like to say my own stuff is good but doesn't have a lot of reviews because that requires active solicitation and I'm busy. I'm competing with millions of authors, both selfpub and tradpub, who have larger budgets. Anyway.)
Still, if you go sifting, ask for recommendations, and follow selfpub authors, you're likely to find more complex work that was not brutalized to fit the lowest common denominator.
The test for allyship isn't how you treat an oppressed person who is your friend, family, spouse. It's how you treat an oppressed person you absolutely can't stand who is vile and loathsome in every way.
Do you gender trans people correctly even when they're being absolutely terrible people? Do you refuse to use the r-slur against someone who suicide baited you but is neurodivergent? Do you refuse to snark at a mentally ill person who is being genuinely unpleasant, "go take your meds!"
Do you allow members of marginalized groups to be terrible people without judging their entire demographic for it? One of the most invisible yet vital forms of privilege is the right to be terrible people as an individual rather than as a group. Do you acknowledge that there are bad people in every group, that it doesn't make their group less worth fighting for? Or do you shake your head if you happen to get mistreated by some who belong to a group and insist the entire group is awful and not worth your allyship?
Oppressed people can see how you treat those of us you like, but do you still treat the worst of us with the basic dignity you treat the worst of other groups with?
If empathy is a muscle, this is how you get SWOLE. This is how you grow BEEFY. I’ve got stacks of empathy muscles. I’ve got an 8pack of empathy and love for humanity’s flaws.
Once upon a time I felt I was a useless pit of a person who did not deserve to live. To fight this voice, I found the “””worst””” people I could and defended them in court regardless of what charge, what they could pay, who they were. I wanted to prove to myself that everyone is worth defending, because if everyone is worth it, so am I.
Pleased to inform you that everyone is worth defending. Human rights are worth defending. Humans are worth helping, even though a lot of them fail and fall even with help. And it’s worth it standing up for oppressed people always always always.
as much as i get the sentiment behind "make more bad art" there's gotta be a better way of communicating "you don't have to be technically proficient or hold yourself to a specific standard of practice" that doesn't sound as backhanded lol
you can't just leave this in the tags 😭
One must imagine Sisyphus happy
Idk what person with chronic illness needs to hear this, but you can do things to make your responsibilities nicer for yourself. You can get an ice cream after a blood draw. You can sit down for tv time after an injection. You can pick out the bandaids that have cartoon characters on them instead of the plain ones. Being an adult doesn’t stop you from benefiting from encouragement. Go for whatever fits with your routine/abilities/budget and makes life a little better. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down etc etc
Today is the biggest day for Ellipsus since we launched in 2023... 👀
Back then, we began building Ellipsus out of a simple belief: writers deserve a place to create, collaborate, and share their work without handing over their words, their data, or their creative process to bad actors and Big Tech—a promise that matters now, more than ever.
Nearly 600k writers and counting are writing on Ellipsus because of this promise. We see everyday how writers are rejecting Big Tech's data mining model in favor of tools that respect user privacy and reflect our values.
We’re a small full-time team building, maintaining, supporting, and improving the tool every day. And to keep doing that sustainably—without compromising the promises that brought people here—we’re introducing Ellipsus Plus.
Plus is a set of optional features on top of free Ellipsus, designed to help fund the continued development of Ellipsus for everyone, free and paid; while helping us stay independent, ad-free, and working to improve the tool well into the future.
That means the Ellipsus you know is staying free: you can keep writing with unlimited documents, drafts, collaborators, and core features. Free Ellipsus will continue to receive updates, improvements, and new features too, including major work already planned (like offline syncing and native apps).
Plus features have been designed alongside community feedback, our pricing shaped by our users around what felt fair and sustainable.
Every Plus subscription leads to ultimate ownership of the tool. Not metaphorical ownership, but real ownership, including all future updates to the Plus plan. No endless subscriptions. Once you’ve paid, it’s yours. Really.
Our introductory Plus features are designed to be fun, creative, practical, and help you get the most out of the tool! We really hope you enjoy them. Here’s a quick overview:
Custom themes
Make your writing space feel like home with custom themes! Use any colors, gradients, images, or .gifs you love. Share with friends and readers. The choices are infinite.
Writing Insights
See insights into your writing process and spot patterns faster across ten AI-free metrics—like vocabulary diversity, sentence length, sentence rhythm, word frequency, and more. Writing insights are opt-in only, and run on local data, so your text never leaves the editor.
Customizable Snippets
We all love snippets! Now you can give your words an extra personal touch. Customize your snippets with media backgrounds (GIFs, images), fonts, text colors, and custom themes—you can even add byline credits for authors and characters!
Emboss
Emboss is our AI-free proof-of-work layer for human writing. Show your readers the time, labor, and love that went into your work. Instead of relying on unreliable “AI-powered” “verifiers” that judge a piece after the fact, share your writing journey, with authorship metrics that help inspire trust. You can also show how your work evolved with snapshots of your version history. Emboss is fully opt-in.
We hope you’re as excited about Plus as we are! Try Plus free for 7 days, no payment required. You can read more (and sign up!) on our Plus page.
Again, there’s tons more to come, and we can’t wait to build it for you. Free or paid, Ellipsus is going to keep getting better. Thank you for your support.
Have questions about Plus? We’re hosting an “Ask the Team” doc where we’ll be answering your burning questions. Please make comments there! Now please, go forth and explore!
- the Ellipsus Team xo
My wife and I are using Ellipsus for our book and it’s awesome. They’re always coming out with new features, always AI free, and just a really awesome thing.
If you’ve been looking for a Google doc alternative I can’t recommend this enough.
Being a crafty person and making a bunch of things often prompts people to ask "oh wow did you make that?" And like, the short answer is: yes I did, but the long answer is: well, no, the pattern isn't mine, but I did choose and buy the fabric/yarn and sewed it together/crocheted it/knitted it myself. I used a reference for that drawing/painting, I didn't come up with it myself. That ceramic piece was insired by a poem and a painting made by different people. What I'm trying to say is, everything I make requires other people to make their own thing first, and then I get inspired by them to do my own thing. So I can't really call anything truly mine, because really it's just a bunch of inspirations and experiences of others (and me) put together by my hands. Does that answer your question
This yarn came from sheep raised in New Zealand and was spun by a woman in Peru. The pattern was created by someone in Germany. My needles were made by a craftsman in China and my stitchmarkers came from the lady at the local fiber festival.
I may have knit this sweater but it contains the souls of people from around the world.
I don’t think people realize what keeping the internet running and producing most tech they use entails like. Physically, labor-wise, energy-wise.
Purposefully included some older articles here so people can see how baked in this is:
Labor Conditions of Content Moderators (2021)
Inside AOL's "Cyber-Sweatshop" (1999)
Digital Labor and Imperialism (2016)
Amazon Mechanical Turk: The Digital Sweatshop (2012)
Gig Economy, Algorithmic Control, and Migrant Labor (2022)
The Rise of Cyber-Coolies (2003)
Ecological Impact of Computation and the Cloud (2022)
The Environmental Sustainability of Digital Content Consumption (2024)
Carbon Footprint of the Internet (2010)
I think a lot of times I see people talk about this stuff in relation to AI. It's right to talk about it, but I hate when people act like AI is the only tech that has these problems. What you see with AI now is a reflection of the broader tech and internet industry that has grown for the past 20-30 years.
@ goodgoodgoodco
https://wigreenfire.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Big-Tech-Unchecked-Toolkit_final_rev19Dec25-resized.pdf
Link to the pdf of the tool kit
Love you guys, stay safe!
It's been a while since I said "this person wins the internet", but today it is merited.
(via bsky)
(The classic XKCD comic)
I don't know who my intended audience is here, so whoever needs to hear this, I am begging you to learn to participate in conversations that are about things you aren't interested in.
Part of socializing and having friends is being a good listener even when you don't actually give a shit about the subject.
Your are hurting other people's feelings when you bluntly respond with "Anyway..." and then change the topic.
It can not always be about your preferred topic.
You are being rude. Yes, even if you are neurodivergent. You can be both autistic and rude.
"we have to accept the fact that the r word is coming back" NO WE DONTTTT NO WE DONT
