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keepingitneutral

Hemmelig Room (‘secret room’ in Norwegian), Upstate New York,

Jason Koxvold and Studio Padron

#home decor

catchymemes

peneigh-dzredfohl

Can everyone who reads this PLEASE reblog it?!?!? Libraries literally saved my life as a child!

Being abused at home, bullied at school and lost in the world, the library and all the books I could escape to the most amazing worlds, kept me alive!

I would walk to the library, and spend all day, from 10 am to 9 pm reading there!! I got special awards for how many books I read, I wrote little blurbs on why i loved the books (probably why I love to BETA and do ARCs)

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE Just hit the green arrows and the reblog!!!

As a 50 year old woman, the library offers me so much. Digital art pads to borrow, 3D printing, book clubs that are face to face (yeah, the introvert likes face to face because a moderator will stomp on anyone getting snarky)

New books in LARGE PRINT! I’m visually challenged and as much as I love my kindle, The feel of a real book in my hands will always be a beloved feeling!

Our library also has quarterly books sales of almost free books!! For 5$USD we get in a day early and can buy as many as we want. Anyone else has to wait and there is a limit for the first 2 days.

stevviefox

Also many, many libraries have inter library loan(it may be called something different). This means if they don’t have the item you want, they can get it for you. This may include photocopy/pdf of articles. This can also include along with books and DVDs, microfilm/fiche which is also a huge resource. Check around for libraries that are listed as depositories if you want to look at government documents.

Remember that many colleges and universities have open stacks for the public. You will likely have to pay a membership fee but you will get to stuff.

psi1998

I love the library ☺

icycove

The library was one of my favorite places to go as a kid and I still live to go and just. Sit and read. Or do homework. The university I’m at has a massive 8-story one I love to just wonder around in~ Great places

jaks21

Libraries are amazing places, we need to protect them to ensure their continued existence.

delphinidin4

We need more positive news to acknowledge that the world is actually getting better little by little. Here are some of the top performing positive news illustrations from 2021.

climatesupport

These may seem like small things, but they’re proof that not everything in the world is terrible. There’s still plenty of good in the world, even if we can’t always see it.

I know many of these have nothing to do with climate or the environment, but some of them do (and I’m sure people will appreciate good news in general) so I’ll reblog this here anyway.

(Also hi followers, I hope you’re all doing well. I’ve been away from Tumblr for a while, but I’m still here, as you can see.)

thenordroom

Paris apartments (click on link for full home tour):

A small bohemian apartment in Paris

An elegant apartment in Paris

A serene apartment with a perfect view over Paris

Original details and historic touches in a family home in Paris

A vibrant family home in an old factory

A renovated attic apartment in Paris

Historic details in a home in Montmartre

A cozy Airbnb apartment in an 18th century building

Spectacular windows in a book-filled oasis

The beautiful Paris apartment of Jackie Kai Ellis

#home decor

vbartilucci

angryrdpanda

Donziger won Indigenous clients a $9.5 billion settlement from Chevron for poisoning the Amazon. Now he's gone to jail after a US judge appointed a Chevron-linked private law firm to serve as prosecutor in a contempt of court case. (Federal prosecutors refused to try the case)

One judge in the first case did not disclose he held investments in Chevron and was openly hostile to the plaintiffs. He appointed the second judge, who not only hired a law firm that works with Big Oil to prosecute Donziger, but hid the trial from the public

Via petition for Donziger's release:

Steven Donziger is a US lawyer, Harvard Law alumnus, and environmental rights defender who represented victims of oil dumping in an emblematic case against Chevron Corporation in Ecuador, following accusations that the corporation was responsible for what is widely considered one of the worst oil-related environmental disasters in recent history.

He has been under pre-trial house arrest since August 2019 after he refused to comply with a court order to hand over his electronic devices, arguing that such a disclosure could compromise the confidentiality of the communications with his clients and put them at risk. The detention follows a long-running smear campaign of intimidation and harassment against Steven Donziger and other human rights defenders by Chevron.

In September 2021, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Steven Donziger’s deprivation of liberty is arbitrary because it lacks any legal basis and is in violation of several norms relating to the right to a fair trial, including the apparent lack of impartiality of the courts. Moreover, the Working Group concluded that his detention appears to be in retaliation for his work as a legal representative of Indigenous communities in Ecuador.

Despite serious concerns over the lack of independence, objectivity and impartiality of the judge who ordered the pre-trial house arrest and who has overseen the trial over criminal contempt charges, Steven Donziger was sentenced on 1 October to the maximum penalty of 6 months in prison and denied the possibility to be released pending an appeal.

We urge the Department of Justice to assume jurisdiction over the case instead of the private prosecutor, and promptly implement the UN Working Group’s decision by ensuring that Steven Donziger is released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on Attorney General Garland to launch a full and independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding Steven Donziger’s arbitrary deprivation of liberty and take the necessary measures to ensure that corporations do not abuse the justice system to target and harass human rights defenders.

More information can be found in Amnesty International's urgent action bulletin here: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AMR51/4915/2021/en/

We join Amnesty International, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Rep. Jim McGovern, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and 29 Nobel Laureates in calling on the DOJ to intervene.

Sign the petition at change.org

endcant

found a post about this to reblog bc i heard some news about this issue. just in case any of you guys need further reason to despise Chevron. Steven Donzinger was able to get home for the holidays due to pressure from some congress members, but that this happened at all is a disgrace and sets a horrible precedent. there’s more information on Donzinger’s twitter, which is @ SDonzinger

bonefarm

I said it in the notes on the last post but I’m gonna say it again.

I’m married to someone with severe memory problems. Automation of household appliances & systems helps him a lot and helps me a lot because it reduces the number of things I have to keep in my brain at all times. I love doors that lock themselves, being able to schedule dog food being delivered, a thermostat I can manipulate from wherever. Beyond my little bubble it should be noted that voice controlled appliances can be really good for people with mobility concerns. Appliances that can measure and talk and remember little tasks can be such a blessing for people.

I will never forgive Amazon and Google for taking technologies that could be really helpful and weaponizing them, and fuck everybody who acts like its some kind of conspiracy theory that those devices are spying on you. You absolutely should be distrustful of those devices but just make sure you’re getting angry at the right people.

creekfiend

Making accessibility devices evil is just like so Disney villain

prismatic-bell

My mom is blind and without her Alexa literally could not cook, go shopping, or do a million other things. Because Alexa is voice-activated, she doesn’t have to fumble with knobs or write a list she can’t read.

I will never forgive Amazon for how much I hate a tool that allows my mother to live her life.

olivia0823yxa

Open source and secure alternatives for some of these:

- Voice activated smart speaker: Mycroft (can be purchased as a complete unit, or DIYed with a Raspberry Pi and microphone+speaker array) https://mycroft.ai/

- Smart Home automation: home-assistant (cannot be purchased, originally developed by MIT) https://www.home-assistant.io/

- Zigbee (the wireless protocol for smart lights and other smart devices) bridge: Conbee II (this takes the place of a Phillips Bridge, for instance. And is in many cases better because it works with all brands of smart light that use Zigbee--which is almost all of them, including the cheap IKEA ones--and also works for devices that aren’t lights. Cannot really be DIYed because Zigbee needs special hardware, not just software) https://phoscon.de/en/conbee2

I don’t know any alternatives for locks, vacuums, thermometers, or anything else sadly. None of these are that difficult to set up with just a little bit of tech know-how, and extensive guides already exist for almost all problems you could run into because the open-source community is almost psychotically dedicated to its projects, unlike Amazon, Google, and Apple where it’s practically impossible to get help with any problem that’s even slightly unusual.

bonefarm

Oh thank you!! These area really neat

ryncoon

Oh thank you so much! My grandmother has an alexa and it’s really improved her enjoyment of life, but I hate even talking around it. It’s linked to my amazon and I’ve gotten suggestions based on things it’s heard. That wigs me out so much.

seperis

Can confirm, Home Assistant is amazing; I transitioned everything I could for it to control and right now that’s literally everything. It can also be integrated with other voice-activated smart speakers than Alexa as well as Alexa. It also comes WITH an Add-on called Ada for voice. So far, there is very goddamn little on the market that isn’t either officially supported or community supported and stuff is being added at the rate of literally weekly. If you do scripting and have a taste for diy, you can be Dr. Doom and your home is your supervillain lair.

Because of the market, most smart appliances and devices are Alexa enabled, but unless they’re made by Amazon, that doesn’t mean they’re Alexa exclusive and even then, someone is hacking their way into the API and pulling the endpoints. Right now, the only thing I can’t work in here (yet) is my Nest Thermostat and HA is working on adding that back in right now.

Home Assistant is fully compatible with the zwave and zigbee standards as well as wifi and bluetooth; you can directly control zwave and zigbee items or link up your existing hubs for it to control like SmartThings.

https://www.home-assistant.io/

It can be run in several ways; I’ve done it on a Pi 4 both 4G and 8G and a VM on my Ubuntu server and while the Pi is recommended--I recommend it too for convenience--it’s one of several possibilites. Currently I’m using a Raspberry Pi 4b 8G with a solid state hard drive instead of SD card. You can purchase z-wave and zigbee modules to add to it for direct control of z-wave and zigbee devices or use your existing hubs (or both). Beneath the HA umbrella is also links to the blueprints of building your own zigbee and zwave devices with Arduino just to start that HA can also control. I’m not saying you’re going to be building your own smart thermostat on the weekend, but apparently, some people are doing just that.

This does not require a high tech start value; most integrations are automatic, you just say yes and login and let it happen, it even creates your Dr. Doom dashboard with TABS.

Again, you DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING BUT COMPUTERS EXIST AND HOW TO CLICK YES AND NO TO USE THIS. For me, it was actually easier than a lot of setups with shit I had to pay money for that said they were easy. This is open source, but that is not synonymous with user unfriendly; a lot of work was done to make this accessible to the casual automation user. The UI is card based; when you first start, HA does it all for you and creates discrete cards that control different things on your dashboard; no effort on your part, you can turn on and off any light in here or turn them red while someone is in the bathroom because that’s fucking funny. But as you get more comfortable, you can start to create your own configurtions, take direct control of the UI, and mix it up; it’s up to you.

But.

If you are a DIYer or just want to be or never knew you wanted to be but feel the vibes and need a place to start, this is the perfect sandbox for learning and escalating. There are a metric ton of tutorials, community add-ins, and message boards to consult. If you can imagine it, it can be done and its likely someone is working on version eight right now. The primary languages are python and javascript with yaml for configuration files for DIY. You can create your own layouts, your own sensors, and your own cards if you don’t like what they have. If you’re like me, you may also go in to community addins and add new stuff to their code so it runs like you want it to; it’s all up to you.

I am not a dev pro, I’m a QC analyst with a scripting hobby; I do this quite literally for fun on weekends or when I’m bored or anxious and need to soothe myself with coding.

Here is the home page of my MULTI-TAB dashboard. Yes, that is a floorplan of my apartment and those glowy orange and dark grey bits are things that I can turn on and off from the comfort of my bed. It’s fun.

I seriously would kill to get more people into this and have someone to play with and enjoy the feeling of controlling all within my (apartment) kingdom with but a single command. Dear God tell me if you’re into it; we’ll be best friends and hopefully you’ll be okay with that.

Here’s an intro to Home Assistant I wrote back in September in DW when I first started, with screenshots. You’ll also be able to see my Dash when I first started compared to the dash above. Feel free to ask me anything from the perspective of someone not a dev professional, an engineer, or even has a degree in anything, much less anything like this, and yet is a QC lead who codes their own testing tools and for whom this is just something cool and fun.

Home Assistant: An Introduction

youcandalekmyballs

this is cool af! reblogging for anyone interested in automation but not bezos!

grimeclown

Yall ever heard white church music? Christian rock is one of the most gratingly generic and repetitive genres of music out there by a mile. It sucks so fucking bad. I am talking about this now because someone is sitting in front of the hospital and blaring “how great? Is our god?” As loud as the speakers in his truck can handle

grimeclown

I dont. Want recommendations. I cannot stress how much i do not care about what “good” christian rock is. I am not looking for a more palatable form of white people singing about the christian faith. I have not and will not ever listen to Skillet.

grimeclown

Okay listening exclusively to gospel is insane but i want to be exceedingly clear. Im talking about white church music. Im talking “your pastor has a ‘very special guest’ whos a pretty blond boy with long hair that wears a denim jacket and unfortunately someone is handing him a guitar” kinda music. The kind of music those white soccer moms stand up and close their eyes and sway to with rapturous enjoyment. Im talking about the bands that play for congregations that look like this.

solarcowboykid

and then they play the same five songs that all sound the same but are annoying in different ways for a year straight but make them all twelve minutes each when they're only supposed to be four minutes and they're also sung out of everyone's range

autisticexpression

The problem with generic white boy praise music is it's not a genuine expression of culture or even of faith. It's soulless pandering that is designed to be as generic and broadly appealing as possible to make christianity seem cool to the youth. But it doesn't fucking work because it's so boring and substanceless that it means absolutely nothing to anyone who doesn't already believe in the message. I went to a Christian school and I know. There was always at least four atheist or atheist adjecant kids sitting in the back of chapel looking absolutely miserable. It just fails on every level and shouldn't exist. It's basically the same level of mindless disingenuous crap as post-911 country music.

On the other hand, gospel music, traditional hymns and carols? That shit slaps! You can enjoy it even if you aren't religious because it's just objectively good music that wasn't manufactured to pander to as broad a demographic as possible.

grimeclown

Oh wow somebody actually left a good response on this post

quasi-normalcy

o-kurwa

magicalgirlmindcrank

My man was really gonna let a fucking BEAR into his house for the views and the BEAR had to be the sensible one here

wordsaremylife

O.m.g. The bear just noped outta there like, you are nuts, dude, I'll show myself out

aqueerkettleofish

"Oh, shit, HUMANS live here. The door KEEPS THEM IN."

thoodleoo

hades explaining that he’s the god of the dead, not the god of death

moonlitlillypop

Thanatos explaining that he’s the god of death, not hades

moonlitlillypop

Thanatos explaining that it applies to animals too

mando-lore

Poseidon explaining that he is the god of the seas and oceans

roomba-with-knives-taped-to-it

Zeus explaining why he can’t keep it in his pants

miceprincess

Hermes explaining why he gotta go fast

memesandmylife

dionysus explaining why he’s Like That

femur-theif

All of these are so accurate it hurts

glass-trash-bab

@nicadenic

lesbian-velma-rights

Also Hermes, God of messengers

confusedwitch-deactivated202412

And Eris, Goddess of discord and chaos

shittymoviedetails

Kevin is the real villian in Home Alone

orgyporgy

The movie establishes that the phone lines to the house are down, that’s also why nobody is able to call Kevin at home. The movie also establishes that all of his neighbors are out of town which is why he couldn’t borrow their phones. The movie ALSO BEGINS by introducing the main antagonist as a “police officer” which is why Kevin doesn’t trust the cops. I’m so tired of the ignorance. The slander.

foxyclock

FINALLY we’ve reached the time of year for home alone discourse

hypokeimena

#he did what he needed to do to survive. then he did a bunch of other stuff he felt like doing (via @hotcrossedfangs)

christopher-bryant

home alone is just die hard for kids

godsperm

He also stole that toothbrush so was even more scared to call the police in case they arrest him for theft too

syntactition

Kevin knew that ACAB ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

violetwolfraven

Keep in mind that the robbers could have turned around and left at any time. Kevin set up the traps, but they didn’t have to walk into them. They could’ve left and robbed an easier house, but didn’t because they wanted to get the 8-year-old who was beating their asses. At some point, it stopped being about stealing the McCallisters’ stuff and started being about killing Kevin, at which point Kevin was justified in doing whatever the hell he wanted to them.

glumshoe

Lucy Lawless was not a particularly burly woman, but somehow she made Xena seem like a fucking tank and I don’t understand how.

glumshoe

Don’t get me wrong—she was strong, and certainly not a waif, but more than almost any other female superhero actress I’ve ever seen, Lucy Lawless exuded physical power and weight that I actually believed (when she wasn’t somersaulting in front of a ridiculous greenscreen).

argumate

that’s a damn good point

ms-demeanor

INTENSE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

COSTUME EMPHASIZING BREADTH OF SHOULDERS

THEM THIGHS

WHATEVER THE FUCK THIS IS ABOUT HOLY SHIT

JAWLINE

EVERYTHING. ALL OF IT. I DON’T KNOW I’M JUST FEELING EXCEPTIONALLY WARM RIGHT NOW.

I LOVE HER

dee-the-red-witch

This is because the tank is not concerned with muscle or endurance. Tank is purely a matter of 60% attitude, 30% mindset, and 110% fuckaroundandfindout.

nehirose

I've also seen another version of the commentary on this post speculating that she was also SHOT like male action star at the time - which has nothing to do with size, but with posture and staging and yes, attitude. 😊