Ydcj @tfsthb - Tumblr Blog

The fact that Tesla autopilots abort self driving 1 second before a crash so the company can state “self driving wasn’t active during the collision” should be grounds to dismantle the entire company.

Like, seriously, if you’re making 4000 pound death machines, and you program this shit to work on a technicality? Your company should be dismantled. Gone. No recourse. Just terrible shit dude

apollos-olives

before i forget to tell you all

on wednesday my history professor pulled me out into the hall and asked me how me and my family doing. i told him about how we're trying to get people out of gaza but it's getting harder and egypt is upping the prices to leave. he nodded and then said "today i wanted to talk about the biden administration and how they're handling the situation in class" and i nodded and right before we headed back in, i stopped him and said "by the way palestinians are really sensitive over using the correct words for this situation. we don't like hearing 'conflict' or 'war' because that implies there are two militaries against each other and palestinians don't have a military, and 'war' implies it's an equal fight when it's not." and he nodded and said "okay what words do you want me to use" and i said "genocide. call it a genocide, that's what it is." and the LOOK. the LOOK he gave me. i can't even describe how horrible it was. just a pure look of surprise shock and disgust and it was like every single microaggression i've ever received all put in one face. you could instantly tell he was uncomfortable. i then said "you can also call it a humanitarian crisis" and he stared at me for a while and then nodded uncomfortably and said "yeah i'll just call it a humanitarian crisis". i shrugged, nodded, and we walked back into class.

the fact that people are SO uncomfortable with using the word genocide and refusing to use it to describe the situation in palestine is just so fucking frustrating. of COURSE genocide is uncomfortable, it SHOULD make you uncomfortable. but palestinians are suffering from censorship and people refusing to call it genocide is not helping our cause. call it what it is. a genocide.

feytouched

cannot stop thinking abt the paris review’s essay series on the history of significance of certain colours, hue’s hue:

Periwinkle, the Color of Poison, Modernism, and Dusk

Eau de Nil, the Light-Green Color of Egypt-Obsessed Europe

Marian Blue, the Color of Angels, Virgins, and Other Untouchable Things

Incarnadine, the Bloody Red of Fashionable Cosmetics and Shakespearean Poetics

Jonquil, the Light Yellow of Early Flowers, Mad Painters, and Dust Bowl–Era Pottery

Scheele’s Green, the Color of Fake Foliage and Death

Lilac, the Color of Half Mourning, Doomed Hotels, and Fashionable Feelings

Hooker’s Green: The Color of Apple Trees and Envy

Blaze Orange, the Color of Fear, Warnings, and the Artificial

Chartreuse, the Color of Elixirs, Flappers, and Alternate Realities

Living Coral, the Brutal Hue of Climate Change and Brand New iPhones

Mustard, the Color of Millennial Candidates, Problematic Lattes, and Aboriginal Paintings

Russet, the Color of Peasants, Fox Fur, and Penance

Verdigris: The Color of Oxidation, Statues, and Impermanence

c-e-mcgill

By the way, if any of you, like me, are nerds who love maps, I highly recommend checking out the Turgot map. I won't link it or tumblr will eat this post, but you can find it just by searching Wikipedia - it's an incredibly detailed 3D map of Paris made in the 1730s, and by "incredibly detailed," I mean

incredibly

INCREDIBLY

DETAILED!

Look, there's Notre Dame! Individual trees! Individual lampposts! Individual boats!! (Some of them even have little people in lol, though clearly not to scale)

The full scan is over 35,000 pixels wide, guys! That's over 10 feet of map!! All drawn and engraved by hand! I'm freaking out a little! What an absolutely amazing piece of history & art!

feytouched

cannot stop thinking abt the paris review’s essay series on the history of significance of certain colours, hue’s hue:

Periwinkle, the Color of Poison, Modernism, and Dusk

Eau de Nil, the Light-Green Color of Egypt-Obsessed Europe

Marian Blue, the Color of Angels, Virgins, and Other Untouchable Things

Incarnadine, the Bloody Red of Fashionable Cosmetics and Shakespearean Poetics

Jonquil, the Light Yellow of Early Flowers, Mad Painters, and Dust Bowl–Era Pottery

Scheele’s Green, the Color of Fake Foliage and Death

Lilac, the Color of Half Mourning, Doomed Hotels, and Fashionable Feelings

Hooker’s Green: The Color of Apple Trees and Envy

Blaze Orange, the Color of Fear, Warnings, and the Artificial

Chartreuse, the Color of Elixirs, Flappers, and Alternate Realities

Living Coral, the Brutal Hue of Climate Change and Brand New iPhones

Mustard, the Color of Millennial Candidates, Problematic Lattes, and Aboriginal Paintings

Russet, the Color of Peasants, Fox Fur, and Penance

Verdigris: The Color of Oxidation, Statues, and Impermanence

regnum-lab

so the academy is reviewing whether or not to remove Will Smith’s award and here are some interesting tweets about that :)

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys

Ukraine, 26th Feb, 2022

A friend of mine told me yesterday that he didn’t realise how much Ukraine meant to him until now. I posted yesterday about the time we spent there, and we’re all getting super pre-occupied about the invasion. As I said in that post, I can’t get our waitress out of my head. I can sort of remember what she looked like now. She had an undercut. I think maybe her hair might have been blue? But - I will never know if she lives through this, and it’s driving me very slightly mad.

So naturally, my husband spent all day yesterday obsessively researching everything he could about it with the help of his journalist friends, as a way to help me process it.

This post is me putting it all in order, as a way to try and process my own emotional response as much as anything else (I freely admit there is an element of self-indulgence here). Please don’t take me as the spokesperson for Ukraine right now, nor as a solid reliable news source. But, I haven’t seen this stuff except in bits and pieces on Tumblr, so here we go.

(This is also not about why the invasion has happened. This post is solely about what has happened, and how the invasion is going.)

So, Putin and the rest of the world believed that this invasion would take 1-4 days. The plan was to push through fast, take Kyiv, and force Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, to surrender. Given Russia’s military might, it really looked likely.

Here is the conclusion of all that’s happened so far:

Ukraine is absolutely nailing this??? Actually???

They managed to defend every single city overnight, including Kyiv. They started rolling out and using these WW2-style anti-tank thingies that look a bit like angry gabbions, look, here’s a picture of one being delivered:

A bunch of spare iron girders turned into a hefty octopus of Russian misery, basically.

But it’s not just tanks they’re taking down, oh no. Ukraine successfully shot down a transport plane 20km from Kyiv. That is, I shit you not, the single biggest hit to the Russian military since the Second Chechen War. Volunteers from Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Azerbaijan and Israel are all entering Ukraine to help fight and bolster the anti-Russian forces, which is probably illustrative of how Eurovision voting is going to run for the next decade. Most countries have banned Russian planes from their air space. To help stop the Russian advance, Ukraine has made and installed new road signs, like this one:

I can only say a handful of sentences in Ukrainian, Tumblrs, but as I understand it, from top to bottom, it says:

“Fuck off”

“Fuck off again”

“Fuck off Russia”

Meanwhile, it turns out the Russian military might we feared is… possibly not quite as advertised?

They’re underfunded and badly trained. Ukraine captured 200 soldiers in one go, and most of them were confused 19 year olds with no training. The equipment is shite. The tanks keep running out of fuel. Russian soldiers keep abandoning their tanks and handing them over to the Ukrainian army. Putin’s plan was to take Kyiv fast and move on, and he didn’t have a plan B - hence these kids, playing soldier. Here is an image of a Russian tank receiving roadside assistance from Russia’s finest, an old Lada.

No one expected Zelenskyy to survive the night; but he did. America offered him asylum in the White House.

But he said no.

Zelenskyy remains in Kyiv, with his people.

And Putin, in his desperation to be adored, has turned Zelenskyy into a global icon and hero.

Here is something you may not know about Volodymyr Zelenskyy - he used to be a standup comedian. Was he any good? No idea - but what he IS good at is producing funny short videos he can put on Twitter and that, which are absolutely fantastic for Ukrainian morale. And morale is vital in an invasion like this, and Ukraine are smashing it out of the park there.

They are utilising the internet to its fullest extent. In addition to Zelenskyy’s videos, they’ve made sure that the final words of the Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island are known and now echoed around the world: “Russian warship, go fuck yourselves.” A video has gone viral of Ukrainians mocking a group of Russian soldiers whose tank had broken down and who didn’t know the way to Kyiv anyway, presumably because of all the new road signs. They have created a website that lists every single Russian death they can identify, partly so Russian mothers can have closure (thus also painting themselves as the defenders of decency and humanity), and partly for the enormous morale boost of the world knowing, categorically, that they’ve already killed 3700 Russian soldiers (over 100 of which were from that transport plane.) Not one word has leaked of Ukrainian casualties. I’m sure they’re devastating, but for morale purposes, they’re being kept quiet until the dust settles. Ukrainians have started setting up fake Tindr profiles to catfish Russian soldiers for intel, and they’re all 19 and lost, so it’s working. Plus, they’re using Grindr to actually track where the soldiers are, because it turns out Putin was not entirely correct about there being no gays in Russia.

So, Russia wants to cut their internet access. Can the Ukrainian Minister for Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, shame a billionaire into providing aid?

This is crucial, remember. Atrocities happen best in the dark, and the world is watching - because of the internet. Morale is vital to maintain. Can they convince Elon Musk to help?

Yep.

Ukraine now has the fastest internet service in the world. The fastest, most stable internet service in human history, in fact. Russia cannot now disable it. The world watches.

Which is just as well, because then Anonymous decided to get involved, and have leaked the website database of the Russian Ministry of Defence. Lol. Also this happens:

And then the Russian propaganda channels started broadcasting the truth of what is happening in Ukraine. Double lol.

So what is the political response?

Well, in addition to closing airspace to Russian planes, loads of countries are sending weapons to Ukraine. Those that can’t are offering asylum. They’re also offering asylum to any Russian soldiers who surrender or defect, which is startlingly good tactics, and there are rumours of around 5000 Russian soldiers who have done just that. Germany, of course, has long had a block on lethal weapons transfer; but Germany recognise this shit for what it is. They’ve lifted the block, thus allowing the Netherlands to send weapons. Efforts are now underway to fast-track Ukraine into the EU. I presume they will consider the lack of pint glasses with crowns on to be a worthwhile price to pay.

So what about Russia’s supporters?

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenka helped Russia with this invasion. Now, this has happened:

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was actually elected president, but some wild nonsense kept her out of power. She’s now running a government in exile. I have literally no idea what this means or will mean! But my god. She has a spine of steel, and this is not a good time to be happening for Putin.

And it’s really, really not, because then intel on a meeting of Putin and assembled Oligarchs LEAKS (hello Anonymous, probably). The highlights:

This war is costing Russia $15bn a day

He expected it to take ONE TO FOUR DAYS TO WIN

It’s been two days and he is losing very badly, currently

They will run out of rockets by day 4, maybe sooner

After that they will be down to rifles and ammo

It will take 3-4 months to make more significant weapons, except they need raw materials, and the countries that can provide them… have cut supply lines

If the war lasts 10 days, Russia will have completely run out of money and weapons

It’s only day 2, and Russian soldiers are knocking the doors of random Ukrainian homes begging for food and water because they’ve already run out

So, out of desperation, Putin turns to his greatest, closest and most trusted ally for help: Kazakhstan.

And Kazakhstan

SAYS NO

And then Ukraine shoots down a second Russian plane.

Anyway, I’m going to finish off with a final point. Morale is vital in this situation, so here is the message from the Ukrainian government at the minute, to everyone watching around the world:

Be VERY SUSPICIOUS of any negative news about Ukraine. Russia uses misinformation and propaganda. They will want to damage Ukrainian morale.

Use your social media to spread news of Ukrainian victories.

Don’t give oxygen to negative stories. Especially since they might not be true.

That’s genuinely something we can do to help. Every victory of Ukraine, blast it far and wide. So on that note, I’ll leave you with this:

Congrats to Natalia Antonova’s cousin’s son.

feferi

THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN FUCKING SAYING

talesfromtreatment

And all these dogs are super fear-aggressive towards strangers as well. The vast, *vast*, majority of dogs a year old or less that we have come in for my shelter’s spay/neuter services are either borderline-traumatized fearful and shut down or they are trying to bite me for the crime of existing within 10 feet of them.

It is not ‘normal’ for a 4 month old shih-tzu puppy to be growling at me from 5 feet away.

It is not ‘normal’ for a 7 month old aussie to lunge for my face when I offered him some food.

It is not ‘normal’ for the 9 month old lab mix to be completely uncontrollable by the owners, up to and including grabbing their arms with his mouth when they tried to put him on the scale and literally knocking them over and dragging them away.

It is not ‘normal’ for the 6 month old golden to be cowering and urinating in fear.

This is a major issue that every level of veterinary and animal care professional is going to be dealing with for the next 15+ years. I sincerely believe that in a few more years, the rate of behavioural euthanasias is going to skyrocket and we’ll be seeing massive increases in incidences of dog bites.

im-the-punk-who

Do you know how *FUCKING* irritated this makes me? I work as a dog trainer(and walker, but primarily as a trainer now) and at the start of the pandemic me and my coworkers literally BEGGED people to continue their dog’s routine as normal - if he gets crated during the day when you went to work, crate him for a few hours a day even if you’re home. If he went on pack walks, continue having him go on pack walks. I literally begged people to do training with me at the start of the pandemic - not just because I was out of work but because I - we all - knew that this would happen. I even offered deferred payment or extreme price cuts to training because it was more about preventing the mental breakdowns I knew these dogs would have than the money for me.

No one took me up on it. I had a client base of 75+ dogs at the start of the pandemic and work was completely silent until at least september of that year.

You know when everyone started calling and asking for help with their dog, who is suddenly going off the rails, barking, biting, peeing, destroying things? In June when everyone really stared going back to work and their dog’s behavior started bothering them. When the dog’s anxiety could no longer be masked or written off as ‘oh i’m just home more often so that’s why Buddy is always with me.’

And to be clear - all of this was preventable. Even in the middle of a pandemic there are ways to socialize animals that are no-contact. Literally just taking your dog to a park and having them sit and watch people walking around is an excellent way to socialize a dog without having to be near people. Leaving your house for an hour and not taking your dog is another. These are simple things and yet as tehy *always do* people thought they knew better then every single animal professional who literally begged them not to just sit at home with their dog for a year and a half and now the animals are paying the price.

And to be clear, I don’t actually care if you think your dog doesn’t have anxiety over this. They do. I can guarantee you they do. Oh they’re just a little more hyper? They’re just chewing some things? They just seem *Really really happy* when you come home now? Follows you around from room to room? Congratulations your dog is showing symptoms of anxiety and you need to address them now before your dog bites someone.

I really really wish that people stopped having such an aversion to calling aggression an anxiety response. Aggression is an anxiety response. No stops. 100% of aggression is anxiety and no I don’t care if you think some dogs are predisposed to aggression they are not. They are predisposed to *anxiety* but people will ignore the hyperactive german shepherd who never settles down or the pitbull who does zoomies 24/7 and jumps on people and needs to be on your ass or she’ll die because that’s cute, right up until that behavior turns to uncontrolled biting and then suddenly it came out of nowhere and it must just be ‘the breed’.

I literally had to stop being a dog trainer for a few months because the expectations people have for both their dogs and us post pandemic are fucking unreasonable. No, I cannot fix your dog in two sessions when it took you 18 months(or probably longer tbh) to fuck him up. No, I will not help you if your only goal is to ‘stop the biting’ and not address your dog’s very real emotional distress that is causing that. No, I can not help you if you want me to do all the work or do not expect this process to take all the time and energy you could have and should have spent during the pandemic just because now you ‘don’t have the time’.

Fucking listen to the professionals - and not the fucking crackpots you cannot turn on two episodes of Caesar Milan(may your dog piss on your remote if you do) and call yourself a dog whisperer. You can watch however many youtube dog trainers you want but unless you have a real, live, professional meet you and see you dog(at *least* through fucking zoom jesus christ) you are going to be addressing the wrong things and *addressing them wrong* because you don’t have anyone to teach you, and watch *you* and tell you what *you* are doing wrong.

But honestly there is no solution now. Or, there is, but pet owners don’t wan to hear it. They just want a magic easy fix, ‘just put my dog on meds’ or ‘i cant do this, he needs a home better for him’. And pet care professionals are so overwhelmed now and honestly compassion fatigued out that the good ones are leaving the profession or just simply do not have the time and energy for as many *severe* cases of anxiety and aggression that have popped up.

wilwheaton

Judge Donna Scott Davenport oversees a juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, Tennessee, with a staggering history of jailing children. She said kids must face consequences, which rarely seem to apply to her or the other adults in charge.

This woman needs to be kicked off the bench and disbarred. Then, she must be prosecuted for abuse of power.

https://www.propublica.org/article/black-children-were-jailed-for-a-crime-that-doesnt-exist

neil-gaiman

Read the article. It left me shaken.

everythingfox

Cold day

(via)

whitepeopletwitter

themedicalstate

“Not sleeping enough, which for a portion of the population is a voluntary choice, significantly modifies your gene transcriptome—that is, the very essence of you, or at least you as defined biologically by your DNA. Neglect sleep, and you are deciding to perform a genetic engineering manipulation on yourself each night, tampering with the nucleic alphabet that spells out your daily health story.”

— Matthew Walker PhD, Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams (via themedicalstate)