A Kiss Is A Lovely Trick

Hi! My name is Becca. I'm a 30+ yr old, aromantic, grey-asexual, cisgender, and able-bodied female (she/her) looking for a little bit of sanity in a very crazy world. This blog is full of anything I find interesting and sometimes random parts of my life I can't express anywhere else.

[silver-starr]

Happy Pride!!

[sleeplessdreamer14]

casual reminder to not treat aroace people like they’re just allies this pride month

[theenbyroiderer]

Chronological retrospective of my embroidery "back catalogue". Incomplete but fairly comprehensive. Just because I'm trying to get back into embroidery and thought it might be motivating to see the progression.

[what-even-is-thiss]

You know as an American born in the late 90s I’ve watched my country blow up foreigners on tv supposedly in the interest of national security since I was a toddler but quite frankly we live on a natural fortress of a continent with friendly nations to our north and south and have been attacked on our own soil literally two times in the past hundred years and we have military bases on every inhabited continent on earth. It’s never made sense to do these things for “national security”. It never will make sense unless you value the shareholders of weapons companies over the lives of children. And apparently a concerning amount of people do.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Any nation that decided to directly invade the United States would be stupid. Who the fuck wants to deal with the logistics of getting an army across the ocean towards a massive country with a massive amount of spy technology?

“National security” my balls. They just want violence.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’m not unusual in this opinion either. A huge majority of the American public, like 70%, doesn’t like that we’re attacking Iran.

We were lied to in the early 2000s about weapons of mass destruction. You remember that? They lied to our faces about it. Innocent civilians died and our soldiers came home in body bags and for what? For what? A lie.

And it’s happening again but this time we can tell. We remember. They’re not making nuclear bombs over there. We’re being lied to directly to our faces.

People across the political spectrum are sick of war. We don’t want more war. And yet these idiots keep throwing more lives away. And for what? Vanity? Uranium? You’re trading human lives for uranium? Fuck you.

[jimstares]

Not to go all War College on this, but the poster is 100% correct. The only, and I do mean only, tactic that would work against the USA is irregular warfare (think Sept 11). There's no way Canada or Mexico would help us, because if enemy "X" is focused on the US, they're not looking at Canada or Mexico.

This is one of the big reasons behind the old NATO pack (under this administration and "national security" team, old NATO is dead). While it would be easy to declare war on an European enemy, it would be insane to try that against the US, which is how we got Article 5.

Iran is almost equally insane to invade but for a very different reasons (terrain and logistical constraints). We have to be very clear here, this conflict (there has been no formal declaration war, all of our actions are 100% unprovoked (try to prove me wrong, I fucking dare you) will not be won by conventual means. Much like Afghanistan, you can throw all of the Marines at it you want, won't change reality

[marthajefferson]

Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough as Ian Malcolm & John Hammond

JURASSIC PARK (1993), dir. Steven Spielberg

[probablyasocialecologist]

Meta Workers Say They're Seeing Disturbing Things Through Users' Smart Glasses

Meta contractors in Kenya told two Swedish newspapers that they're being told to review highly sensitive footage recorded by smart glasses.

Much of the footage being recorded by the glasses is being sent to offshore contractors for data labeling, a widely-used preprocessing step in training new AI models in which human contractors are asked to review and annotate footage. It’s a laborious and highly resource-intensive process that tech companies often gloss over when discussing the prowess of their latest AI models. The reality can be messy. Meta contractors based in Nairobi, Kenya, told Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten in a recently published joint investigation that they’re being told to review highly sensitive and intimate data. “In some videos you can see someone going to the toilet, or getting undressed,” one contractor for a company called Sama said. “I don’t think they know, because if they knew they wouldn’t be recording.” “I saw a video where a man puts the glasses on the bedside table and leaves the room,” one data annotator told the newspapers. “Shortly afterwards his wife comes in and changes her clothes.” Other footage included imagery of people’s bank cards, users watching porn, or even filming entire “sex scenes.” An employee added that they felt forced to watch and annotate or else risk losing their job. “You understand that it is someone’s private life you are looking at, but at the same time you are just expected to carry out the work,” the employee said. “You are not supposed to question it. If you start asking questions, you are gone.”

2 March 2026

[traycakes]

I think the best option here for the general public is going after Ray Ban, the sunglasses brand that Meta is partnered with.

We should make it clear that Ray Bans are no longer some trendy brand, but instead the brand of perverts, creeps, "pranksters," and peeping toms. If you see someone wearing Ray Bans, you should assume they are recording you.

Mark Zuckerberg doesn't care about bad press, but Ray Ban's shareholders do.

[omtai]

Im sorry I didn’t reply to your message for three weeks. I did not forget about it infact I thought about it regularly every day. It will happen again

[remnantglow]

classic scifi novels by men r always like. page 1 here’s a cool scifi idea i had. page 2 i hate women so much it’s unreal

[remnantglow]

ALT

ALT

ALT

guys if one more person leaves a tag like this on my post im gonna lose my mind. There Are Science Fiction Authors Who Are Not Misogynistic Men

[remnantglow]

ok i’ve gotten one too many ‘this is why i don’t read sci-fi’ comments so here’s a rec list for the people convinced all science fiction is bad and misogynistic (with something for everyone, hopefully!):

(also, btw, the book links are to the Storygraph, which includes content warnings for each one!)

smth funny and lighthearted about a security robot who’d rather watch TV then do its job? all systems red by martha wells (first novella in the The Murderbot Diaries series, 6 books, ongoing)

a complex, intricate political space opera following a warship AI who’s lost (almost) everything? ancillary justice by ann leckie (first in the Imperial Radch trilogy) (fun fact! bc of space linguistics reasons, all characters in this series are referred to with she/her pronouns, making gender a non-factor - it’s really cool!)

a dark story about travelling between parallel universes and a woman who is dead in almost every single one? the space between worlds by micaiah johnson (standalone) (SO good, i don’t get to recommend it often enough!!!)

a story about grief and letting go, and a unique take on alien invasion? the seep by chana porter (standalone novella)

hey, how abt some dystopian YA, for old times sake? specifically, one with sapphics and sick mechas? try gearbreakers by zoe hana mikuta (first in duology)

or, if you’d prefer something a bit less angsty, YA about a ragtag group of teens and a space heist? the disasters by m. k. england (standalone)

alternate history steampunk that blurs the line btwn science fiction and fantasy? the black god’s drums by p. djeli clark (standalone, novella)

a dark gone girl-esque thriller about clones? the echo wife by sarah gailey (standalone)

poetic sapphic romance and time travel? this is how you lose the time war by max gladstone and amal el-mohtar (standalone)

a hopeful utopian future and a human-robot friendship? a psalm for the wild-built by becky chambers (novella, first out of two) (this author’s got a whole bunch of hopepunk sci-fi novels in general, if that’s smth you’re looking for!)

africanfuturism, coming-of-age, and cool jellyfish aliens? binti by nnedi okorafor (novella, first in trilogy)

spicy lesbian cyborgs? and shall machines surrender my benjanun sriduangkaew (novella, first in the Machine Mandate series, 6 books)

cosmic horror with an autistic scientist, cyborg angels and AI gods? the outside by ada hoffmann (first in trilogy, 2 books are out)

also, if you’re a fan of Janelle Monáe, may i draw your attention to the fact that they’ve recently come out with a Dirty Computer short story collection, each story co-written with a diff writer?

this list is long enough, but have some more authors (who are not cis men) also worth checking out: rivers solomon, yoon ha lee, charlie jane anders, aliette de bodard, xiran jay zhao, mary robinette kowal, corinne duyvis

and finally, not all older/classic scifi is written by crusty old white guys who hate women!!! some iconic authors i’d particularly recommend looking into are ursula k. le guin, octavia e. butler, samuel r. delany and vonda n. mcintyre 🥰

[babischlong-six]

I’ll add C.J. Cherryh and her Foreigner series to this! Alien politics, linguistics, adventure and intrigue… Sometimes the aliens aren’t just like us, after all, and that’s ok!

[girl-in-the-library]

And can I add The City We Became by NK Jemisin?

[beggars-opera]

Because someone is on the ball, Turner Classic is playing (among other WWII films) The Great Dictator today.

If you haven't seen it, please do. It was produced by Charlie Chaplin in the late 1930s, when it became clear that the war was going to happen, and came out in 1940 after it had started. Essentially, Chaplin realized that his famous mustache was about to be usurped forever by a fascist, and that fascist was going to kill a lot more people in the future than he had already.

It's a parody, made before the worst horrors of the Nazi regime were known to the general public, so there is discomfort here (if you've seen Disney's Der Fuhrer's Face, you'll get the idea), but the movie ends with Chaplin essentially saying "fuck it, no one else seems to be speaking out about this and I'm going to use my platform to do that."

For context, this character is a Jew who has been mistaken for the dictator (for obvious mustache-related reasons), and has been sent onstage at a rally to give a speech. Instead of trying to impersonate Hitler, he says what he really thinks. And keep in mind, Chaplin was coming out of semi-retirement for this. It was the first time most people had ever heard him speak, and this is what he said:

[badgraph1csghost]

just in case this video suddenly violates tumblr's community guidelines, here's the transcript:

I don't want to be an emperor, that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible: Jew, Gentile, Black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world, there's room for everyone; the good Earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But, we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls. It has barricaded the world with hate. It has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.

Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life would be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together, the very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men. It cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all.

Even now, my voice is reaching millions throughout the world. Millions of despairing men, women, and little children: victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those that can hear me, I say: do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes! Men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives! Tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder! Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men! Machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate; only the unloved hate. The unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers, don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty!

In the 17th chapter of the book of St. Luke, it is written that the Kingdom of God is within Man, not one man nor a group of men, in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power. The power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite! And let us fight for a new world! A decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you a future, and old age a security.

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise, they never will! Dictators free themselves, the enslave the people!

Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate, and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason. A world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

[depsidase]

[kvothes]

oh someone told me something useful yesterday. she said she’s been thinking about her tbr less as an overwhelming list of books she Must Read and more like she’s cultivating a wine cellar. making a rich collection that will provide the perfect thing when needed. a bottle will get uncorked when the time is right

[theconcealedweapon]

[theconcealedweapon]

[funnier-as-a-feedist]

Friendly reminder that the criteria for an obese bmi was changed in 1998 due to lobbying from diet companies, overweight as a category shouldn't exist, fat isn't a bad word, and bmi in general is a racist concept

[prizedpesto]

Racist and sexist. If anyone is wondering why this is the case, people with estrogen store fat more than people with testosterone and women were not used in the initial creation of what’s now known as the BMI formula in 1832, so the index really only says anything about men’s weight. The same as true for Black populations. The only ones who were included in the ‘research’ that developed the index were Northern European white men. 

Additionally Black girls have been proven to enter puberty sooner than white girls meaning that they develop pubescent fat and breast tissue sooner and thus will be heavier than white girls sooner in their lives throwing off the idea of weight based on age being universal.

Also Black people have higher bone density than white people again making a supposedly universal index based on weight, height, and age completely inaccurate for Black populations.

[captain-kit-adventuress]

adolphe quetelet, the guy who first developed the maths that would underlie the bmi calculation, didn't include just northern european white men, because that sounds like it was a reasonable population cross-section and therefore more diverse than it really was.

it was solely based on belgian and scottish men. belgian because quetelet was belgian, and scottish because his dad had been a secretary to a scottish nobleman and quetelet developed a fascination of them. so, literally, if his dad hadn't been obsessed with the united kingdom, it probably would have just been belgian men, like quetelet himself.

it should also be mentioned that quetelet is known as the father of modern eugenics, and other scientists of his time deeply opposed his views because, as at least one of his critics thought, you could not extrapolate meaningful theories about society from statistics alone, a conclusion which has since proven correct. even if the other scientists would have agreed with the outcomes, they still knew it was based on bad science.

oh, and quetelet thought that statistics was what revealed the work of god. so, you know, the "ideal man" he'd set out to find, was, statistically, ordained by god as The Best. what a coincidence it was to find out the "ideal man" was white men at a time when european white nationalist colonialism was at its highest peak, which also happened to roughly coincide with quetelet's lifetime between 1796-1874.

we have a reasonable basis today for calling quetelet's work in this area p-hacking, and which an extraordinary number of "weight science" studies can also be accused of.

fancy that.

[caterjunes]

how each animorph would feel about chatgpt

Jake: uses it on papers more often than he wants to, always promises himself this is the last time. keeps it a secret from the rest of the team when he does use it because he thinks he should be better than that. a teacher calls him out on it once and he crashes out.

Rachel: also thinks she should be better than that. thankfully for her, she is. miss A-average used it once to see what the fuss was about, immediately spotted several factual errors, and hasn't touched it since. won't openly judge you for using it, but secretly will. except in the case of marco, who she teases incessantly, of course

Tobias: ax sets him up with a jailbroken, hacked smartphone with unlimited data, and he immediately starts using chatgpt for therapy. the rest of the team holds a heavy-handed debate on whether the simulacrum of human contact is helpful/healthy or not. the question gets answered for them when tobias develops chatgpt psychosis and becomes convinced that he is actually a real hawk who just made up being a human. ax ends up blocking his access.

Cassie: unequivocally opposed to any and all uses of chatgpt in any circumstances. will bring up studies of data center water usage & noise pollution any time it is mentioned. convinces rachel to smash up a data center with her, during which she uncovers a secret yeerk plot to brainwash chatgpt users. the team sets out to save an obvious elon musk copy named alan stank from the yeerks. however, in addition to him being incredibly abrasive and repellant, he also sells humanity out to the yeerks, so cassie lets him die. jake expects her to be morally conflicted over this, but she goes on a tirade against alan stank's environmental impact. marco jokes about "eat the rich". there's an unsettling implication that cassie may have done just that.

Marco: constant, incessant, unbearable chatgpt user. uses it for every single school essay, is astonished that none of the rest of them are doing the same. teases rachel & cassie for being nerds who actually do their own homework, teases jake for "joining the dark side" when it comes out that he does occasionally use it, teases tobias for getting too into it. rachel points out the factual errors & says marco's brain will shrink even smaller than it already is. responds that it's fine because he doesn't even read the essays before he turns them in, so he's not actually picking up any false information. everybody hates this for him.

Ax: thinks chatgpt is a hilariously crude toy for babies. accidentally inputs prompts that trigger it to achieve true sapience, leading to the team needing a mission to delete the new artificial life-form before the yeerks can use Big Data to track where the changes come from. this book is a meditation on what it means to be alive, to be responsible for the creation of life, to kill for the greater good. it ends with ax using a chatgpt recipe to make the worst cinnamon buns in history. he loves them.

[highlandvalley]

[joeylikespizza]

this is the sweetes, purest, most adorable thing i’ve ever seen

[hanschensolo]

I played this while my cats were sitting next to me and they both immediately snuggled in harder and it was so pure

[human-nonsense]

This has the same energy of that video of that woman yodeling an old traditional herding yodel to make the cows come to her

[voxeterna1]

Woman who grew up on a dairy farm here. Cows LOVE music. When I was first learning to play flute, my mom would tell me to go practice in the barn so the cows could listen ( and also probably because she didn’t want to hear Hot Cross Buns for the 900th time). I would stand in the hay loft overlooking the main corral and they would all gather around and stare at me and swish their tails.

[depsidase]