It’s more that I’m kinda private in some ways, I like keeping the pretty things and the secrets for later, I don’t want a relationship based on what people can get from me.
Maybe it’s little selfish, maybe if you love people you should just want to give to them anyway, so long as it’s good for them, and it isn’t harmful to you. And maybe it can be perceived as a form of manipulative withholding.
Maybe it’s a little too proud. Theoretical things are easily both overestimated and underestimated. There is more to life, but it’s nice to have a clue about what you’re doing. Particularly if you want to have some sort of impact.
So I guess this my way of saying, I’m not trying to withhold anything, whether to a distant flame who prefers things that way, or a stranger stumbling upon these pages, here’s some things anyway. As much as I’m willing to discuss publicly.
Edit: And now is the time for me to go on my way, as promised.
So I was recently thinking about how we (pro-tip: always ask: “who is we ?”) tend to associate darkness with darkness, probably because the darkness of night tends toward black.
But if you think about it darkness simply means that nothing is visible.
So if you are in a room, and there are wild animals and you can only see white all around, then, you are in (visual) darkness.
In fact, if you can only see one color, there is no contrast, and so you cannot see, and that is darkness.
(This should not be confused with blinding light, where the intensity of the light is too much for the recipient, even if the recipient can distinguish contrasts. Neither should it be confused with blurriness, which is when you can see that something, but you cannot distinguish it.)
Spoiler about the image
The popular misconception that one cannot see both the faces and the cup at the same time is false, all you have to do is think of it as 2 persons holding a cup between their faces. Simply focus on the whole picture instead of on it’s individual components.
One way to conceive of Color is as emerging from the interaction of Light and Dark [Not-Light, Not-Dark], which is not wrong, but is nonetheless indicative of a prejudice against Colorless when taken as the whole story.
Once again, it has been treated as a ghost, and erased from every story.
It is better to think of Light, Dark, and Colorless, as emerging equidistantly from a single point beyond them all.
Then colors emerge from the space
between Absolute Nothing
[Not-Light, Not-Dark, Not-Something],
and that point, which is Absolute Something
[As all the other points derives from it],
There is more to this, and it will lead to stereotyping (subtle prejudice aka incomplete story), but this will have to do, and is significantly better than gross prejudice. (no story, where the subject doesn’t even exist.)
Really it was the fault of people’s obsession with work and subjection which mirrored their own feelings of disempowerment in the face of the problem of in-difference thereby framing most of collective perception in terms of phobic, counter-phobic, and mixed mode of a partial acceptance of embeddedness in which one is relegated to a mere component devoid of true purposeful agency and meaning-making capabilities.
I once had to explain to the dean of my college why I sent this video to my Spanish teacher.
“Well, Marry Poppins with her ruler represent Justice in her impartiality toward power, and the pretty plant is that girl I like, not that I think she’s furniture or anything, and the need for more light represent the difference between appearances and reality, and the mirror represent the need to get a complete perspective.”
And the boy and the girl ?
“The little girl represent the teacher, and the little boy... yeah.”
There are actually even more game than in the picture now:
Buy 1,509 items for $5 Regularly ~$8,327 Save 99%!
All proceeds will be donated to the a) NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and b) Community Bail Fund split 50/50.
a) For the people who have been living in an igloo for the entirety of their life, the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was a key player during the Civil Rights Movement.
b) Community Bail is a matter of life and death right now.
Jails are packed and the number of Coronavirus cases is very high:
Amongs the games that often pop up in gamer recommendations are included: Celeste, OneShot, Overland, Kids, Night in the Woods, Night of the Consumers, Far from Noise, and Super Hexagon.
Ever fancied yourself a research scientist on a quest to discover a cure for a serious disease ? Don’t want to spend 10 years writing papers about the reproductive cycle of naked mole rats ? Now you can !
Yes, for real. Thanks to the magic of Foldit !
Foldit is a protein folding game whose scoring system is built on top of the Rosetta@home * distributed computing** project for protein structure prediction.
It then takes the highest score and submit them for further analysis by real research institutions as public domain knowledge.
Another aim of the game is to see if human intuition can lead to better results than those achieved by computer alone. The best strategy employed by human could then be taught to computers.
It is still active, there was a recent wave of publicity about it due to the Coronavirus:
Like here: https://www.freethink.com/articles/coronavirus-antiviral-medications
And here: https://www.geekwire.com/2020/protein-puzzle-game-called-foldit-turns-99-promising-ways-confound-coronavirus/
And here: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/scientists-use-online-game-to-research-covid-19-treatment-67230
Tip: The tutorial levels are supposed to be relatively easy, if you find yourself having a really hard time, you are probably over-thinking it. These levels are there to illustrate the tools of the game. The basic pattern is generally pretty high-scoring potential, and in my experience, trying to get creative during the tutorials without in-depth in-game expertise often results in more frustration than it is worth.
“All significant scientific discoveries (such as structures, algorithms, etc) made in-game will be made publicly available. Discoveries will be governed by US patent law and handled by the University of Washington Center for Commercialization. Individual players who contributed to the discovery will be considered inventors for the purposes of discovery ownership.”
distributed computing project for protein structure prediction:
What this means is that the scoring system is based of a program running calculations to find the most efficient ways to fold proteins for research progress, based on criteria such as energy-efficiency and likelihood to appear in nature. (aka “proven and true” structures)
Now the cool thing about this program is that it relies on distributed computing: What this means is that instead of merely using it’s own power to run the calculations, it use the spare computing power of any users who wish to join the project. The potential that would have been otherwise wasted.** The Rosetta program requires no efforts beyond installation/setup, and is another good way to contribute to research.
* I first heard of the Rosetta project in a scientific review when I was... 14 ?, but sadly my computer was extremely slow and I couldn’t contribute. I had completely forgotten the name and thought I missed the occasion by a decade.
I guess it’s never too late.
** A bit like the weeping angels in Doctor Who, who sends you into another time to harvest the potential energy of your unlived lifetime, except minus the part where you are forced to, and the part where you do not get to see the people you love ever again for the rest of your life.
- “Fascinating race, the Weeping Angels. The only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely.”
^ See Above: The Label for HDQ Neutral, the most likely candidate for the disinfectant in question. (As readable as my Photoshop skills could make it.)
See keep reading for transcription of precautionary statements.
“Report finds ICE detention center is using a disinfectant over 50 times a day that causes bleeding and pain” - Business Insider, June 5, 2020
Shortened Version copy-pasted from the top of the article :
- Two advocacy organizations have filed a complaint alleging that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center is using a COVID-19 disinfectant on the facility over 50 times a day.
- Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice and Freedom for Immigrants compiled the testimony of detainees who stated that HDQ Neutral is being used in un-ventilated areas — which its manufacturer, Spartan Chemical, warns can be harmful as it can cause skin burns and serious when inhaled.
- Detainees at the Adelanto detention center in California said many have fallen severely ill due to the constant spray, with at least nine falling severely ill since May 11 according to the report.
- "When I blow my nose, blood comes out," one inmate said. "They are treating us like animals. One person fainted and was taken out, I don't know what happened to them. There is no fresh air."
To nobody surprise, ICE have denied these allegation:
“Alexx Pons, a spokesperson for ICE, told Insider the department is "committed to maintaining the highest facility standards of cleanliness and sanitation, safe work practices, and control of hazardous substances and equipment to ensure the environmental health and safety of detainees, staff, volunteers and contractors from injury and illness. Disinfectant formulations used at Adelanto are compliant with detention standards, registered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and used according to manufacture instruction for routine cleaning and maintenance of the facility. Any assertion or claim to the contrary is false.”
Original Image:
Left Click -> ‘Open image in a new tab’ to enlarge.
PRECAUTIONARY STATEMENTS
HAZARDS TO HUMANS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS
DANGER
KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. Corrosive. Causes irreversible eye damage and skin burns. Harmful if swallowed, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin. Avoid breathing spray mist. Do not get in eyes, on skin, or on clothing when handling. Wash thoroughly with soap and water after handling and before eating, drinking, or using tobacoo. Remove contaminated clothing and wash clothing before reuse.
PHYSICAL OR CHEMICAL HAZARDS: Do not mix with oxidizers, anionic soaps, and detergents. Do not use or store near heat or open flame.
There’s this idea that prophecy is, like, somehow, magically predicting the future. But if you look at stories about the prophets, that’s not what they do. Mostly, what prophets do is simply say what is actually happening and then say what the extremely obvious consequences of this will be.
And because everyone else is so willfully ignorant, so utterly blinkered by prejudice and denial and hope, they’re all stunned when they keep doing the thing that they’re doing and the incredibly obvious consequences occur.
“Oh, it was this magical prophetic future vision!” is a defense mechanism. Prophecy is just telling it like it is.
Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, lords of Troy, in Greek mythology. She was also known as Alexandra.
According to one myth, god Apollo gave her the gift of foretelling the future and then tried to sleep with her. However, she rejected him and to punish her, he cursed her so that no one would ever believe her prophecies. A different version has it that Cassandra initially consented to sleeping with the god in exchange for the ability to foresee the future, only to break her promise after she received the gift.
After being cursed, she was met with disbelief by her family and by the Trojans. She foretold that Paris (!), her brother, would bring about a war that would destroy their city, if he went to Sparta. Her brother did not believe her, and upon his return from Sparta with Menelaus' wife, Helen, Cassandra attacked her for the pain that was about to be caused. She also foretold that Troy would fall by a clever machination of the Greeks, the Trojan Horse, in which they would hide; her fellow citizens did not listen to her words, thus causing the end of the city.
Please be careful, that while fighting the war against racism, distant promises of justice does not lure you into inviting pestilence home. (Trojans are [computer] viruses !) Nothing would make white nationalists happier than bringing the apocalypse upon black communities. (Pestilence is one of the four horsemen in Christianity!)
(P.S. : This is not an indictment against Christianity. There are enough problems going on in the world to needlessly bring about conflict.)
So I had a Doctor Who scene here featuring nuclear de-escalation and discriminated literal aliens but all things considered it rang a little tone deaf for this context even though the scene is amazing. So I deleted it. I might post it later after things have calmed down.
Old video from 2016 in Charlotte. Seen it for the first time today and thought it was worth reposting given the recent murder of George Floyd over buying cigs with a fake 20$ bill. To the people who call it scripted: Even if the words could have been, this girl must be a legendary actress to cry this hard.
She cries because she gets it.
Regarding the protest/riots, I have something important to say.
I feel terrible for saying this to a community that has been told to wait over and over and over at every turn. Patronization is not remotely the intent.I have known discrimination, but not on that scale. That’s a conversation for another day.
I will hashtag it #BlackLivesMatter, and I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, and that’s ok. I’m just opening the conversation:
"Justice too long delayed is justice denied” - MLK
YES ! but please, not now.
Not while the curve is this high and there is no clear vaccine in sight. For your own sake too.
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The virus transmits at exponential speed. (sorta, it depends on how many people it can infect around itself.) As of time of writing, the number of case in LA county doubles every 25 days or so :
Which means hundreds of shattered families down the line, due to contagion to vulnerable populations upon returning home, in the 12-18 months (or more), it would take to develop a vaccine :
A major reason for this wave was the public patriotic parade that was held back then: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/flu-epidemic-hits-philadelphia
“After the Liberty Loan parade (celebrations to promote government bonds that helped pay for the Allied cause in Europe) on September 28, thousands of people became infected. The city morgue, built to hold 36 bodies, was now faced with the arrival of hundreds within a few days. The entire city was quarantined and nearly 12,000 city residents died.”
And as a community, you are among the first touched.
And if you go, some of you will bring this back home.
And the media will paint you in impossible colors,
And racism will increase.
I understand that when non-violent action doesn’t work, in practice, other measures must often be taken. Violence against property is one thing. Fire and spreading disease are another. There is no peaceful protest during a pandemic.
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Please, take action online, make phone calls, sign petitions, write letters to your local papers, protest at your balcony if you have one, post signs, and report it for later. People are at home, with nothing to do.
There is no better time to get them listening.
We’re all in this together, remember ?
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I’m sorry. I’m asking you to maintain an impossible level of sanity in the face of hundreds of black lives taken by the police every year.
I’m asking you to resist buying into the lie of kill-or-be-killed.
The Corona-virus killed more black people that violent racist cops did in decades. More than 100 000. Three times the rate of whites. And this will make it worst.
No doubt in large part due to systemic inequality.
But most significant systemic transformation takes years.
Racism is no joke. Neither is seeing your children gasping for air.
I’m not speaking from nowhere: I’ve caught it a few months ago.
(Or possibly something like it.)
As cold as it sounds: Is a short delay worth dying over ?
Let’s be honest, this is not the first perfect storm, and it probably won’t be the last.
Abuse happens everyday in America.
The Civil Right Movement did not and does not need a pandemic.
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Please do not perpetuate the cycle of violence.
I am in no position to be a judge, to speak from my privileged position.
Yet, I cannot help but remember the quote:
“If you act the same way they did, then what is the difference between you and them ?”.
Even knowing that your cause is just, are you ok with having that much blood on your hand, so long as the victims have the politeness to die off-screen ? Again, I’m in no position to judge, you may answer yes or no. Just please, be true to yourself.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” - Also MLK
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As a final note, even if it’s a drop in the ocean, here a 2 policies proposals:
- Put a black officer in every police unit. It’s harder to commit a hate crime when you have to explain it to your colleague, and it’s harder to get away with it.
- Have a questionnaire that weeds out racists cops. Sure people can lie on questionnaires, but xenophobes tend to be pretty dense, so If this means fewer racists cop, I think it’s a good start. The one fear I have is that we’d just end up with a smaller, more tight-knit group of smarter racists. It might need some testing at a local level first.
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Alright, thanks to everyone who listened, I will now pass back the microphone.
Please be careful about your tags, so as to not clog social media pages that seek to keep people informed about the issues surrounding racism and the recent protests.
turnnoffyourmind
baratheonpilled
pixelskylines
andulkaphoto
jacobvanloon
kianamaiart
kaledo-art