The Traveling Cygnus

TTRPG's, art, memes, and everything else (he/him)

[dchuntress]

bunny moodboard

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

[stay-the-knight]

[depsidase]

[mangamaga]

art nouveau fireplace from 1908 in Catalonia

[libraford]

Knowing how stuff works at the municipal level is a fucking curse because you can do your best to relay information to the community and they still assume the worst of you.

To the average person, it looks like we're just tearing up all the parks for development. But there were meetings and posts and announcements, and there was community input and awareness programs and we did our absolute best to keep everyone in the loop but some people still fell through the cracks.

So they think we're destroying all the parks.

"Why did parks and rec get rid of the fence at this park??? All parks should have fences!"

The fence was damaged and we thought it might be more convenient to open up the area so that people using the shelter didnt have to walk all the way around to get into the playground. The fence was damaged because people would climb it as a shortcut. (I personally disagree that all parks should have fences.)

"Why did they tear down the playground at Miller Park? It was perfectly fine- they wouldn't have to tear it all down if they bothered to maintenance it like they're supposed to."

Playgrounds are suggested to be replaced every ten years to keep up with accessibility updates. Likewise, it was decided that while we're updating the playground it would be a good opportunity to address the safety concerns brought to our attention in the past decade.

"THEYVE COMPLETELY TORN APART WILLOW RIDGE PARK! How dare they take away our precious few greenspaces and line their pockets with kickbacks from high density housing???"

-deep breath-

If you had bothered to go to any of the four public meetings, read the announcements, or looked at the giant sign in front of the park, you would notice that we are remodeling the park to include a wetland restoration area to address the flooding issues, which was voted on by the neighborhood it is adjacent to.

Yall are gonna feel real silly when these projects turn out to be massive improvements.

[libraford]

"Why doesnt our town have a community garden?"

Well the answer is very simple: we do.

[autumnapologist]

Literally me everyone time someone says to me "i really wish i lived somewhere that has (community garden/arts center/public rec center/any nice community thing)" you do!!! Its right here!!! You just dont bother googling to look for it!!!

[libraford]

Part of this is the problem i run into every time as an event organizer, and that's-

How the FUCK do you reach the most people with your information?

Our little queer nonprofit does its best with a monthly newsletter, facebook, Instagram, meetup, physical posters, and our good old fashioned schmoozing. All that for about.... 500 people to show at pride, out of a city of 34k.

City management has 31k followers on facebook, a monthly magazine with a calendar of events that citizens get for free, open monthly meetings, an email list, and all the resources available to them and we STILL have people asking why we dont have amenities we already have.

I feel the city manager's pain.

[kushandwizdom]

Someone said "Are you really so stupid to think that Africa has the same technological advances as us? If they did they would probably have clean water and not live in houses made of sticks and mud. Get over yourself and stop being so ignorant."..... Below is a tiny collection of images of the Africa they refuse to show you..

ches

I’m sorry you’ve been made to believe that the whole of Africa is poor, I really am..

[shez-a-b0mbshell]

Reblogging for those of you who think Africa is only what the media and movies portrays it to be

[teddybearnova]

This fucks me up because it’s scary to think that we can be showed something all our lives and not even know it’s a lie

[2ollux-double-bulge]

And that my friend is the power of propaganda, indoctrination, and media

[the-collecting-turnip-deactivat]

Are these pictures of South Africa or of Africa as a whole? 

[fgsshinyhoard]

@the-collecting-turnip From top to bottom:

1. Port Elizabeth (South Africa)

2. Unknown

3. Nairobi (Kenya)

4. Pretoria (South Africa)

5. Aburi Botanical Gardens (Ghana)

6. Cape Town (South Africa)

7. Pretoria (South Africa)

8. Harare (Zimbabwe)

9. Windhoek (Namibia)

10. Windhoek (Namibia)

To @kushandwizdom this is a rather unfair portrayal of Africa as a whole since half of these are literally just South Africa.  So Instead to add to this post and better dispel the myth of Africa as the vast wasteland of poverty most people think, I found a much more mixed collection of pics from various countries.

Luanda, Angola

Agadir, Morocco

Lagos, Nigeria

Cairo, Egypt

Port Louis, Mauritius

Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire

Algiers, Algeria

Tripoli, Libya

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Tunis, Tunisia

So, there, a much better case demonstrating the various major cities around Africa showing it isn’t some technologically backwards continent, but actually pretty up-and-coming in the world of commerce.

[hockey-trash]

I once was talking to my Ethiopian manager about ignorant people asking her dumb shit about her life before she moved to the states…

the worst story she told me about was when she told a fellow student (at a fairly prestigious university) about a concert she went to back home. The other student responded with “omg you have music there!?” 🤦🏾‍♀️

[cricketcat9]

Rebloging, because we need to see these pictures. 

As for stupid questions: “do you have grocery stores in Ecuador?”

[justgot1]

These are great!

A redneck neighbor once asked my mom (in the 80s) if they had cars in Peru. Sigh.

This is the product of poor world history in school & little current affairs coverage outside Western Europe, except for catastrophes, so all we see are the war torn, poverty stricken, disaster-affected parts on the news. And racism, of course.

[lettingitoutabit-deactivated202]

I bet most Americans who think that African countries are just completely poverty stricken have no idea what the US looks like in its poorest areas, not everywhere in the US is nice suburbs or unrealistically large apartments on tv

[for-southendgirls]

Los Angeles, California

Hartford, Connecticut

New Orleans, Louisiana

Camden, New Jersey

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

McDowell County, West Virginia

Flint, Michigan

Washington, D.C.

[goingtiny]

Do you see the world as it is, or as someone told you it is?

[hogwartsconsultingtimelady]

This photoset proves you can make anywhere look great or terrible. It’s all framing and more people should know about that

[gamebird]

Worth a reblog. I don’t think the US version was on there when I first reblogged.

[holyfudgebuckets]

All of this is true, and also- those stick and mud houses are actually amazing examples of indigenous African knowledge. They are being studied for their thermal properties and sustainability.

Of course traditional African homes look different from homes in the US or Europe- they’ve started from different climates and resources. It’s such racist hubris to assume different means lesser-than.

[moniquill]

Do you still sleep in Grass thatched houses ‼️😳

Hey Fam Thank you for coming by Another video here answering why we sleep in grass thatched houses Hahahha some people clearly don’t know wh

https://share.google/MCbqIYkdTvWZ3TgTA

[aetherograph]

also also, the racism of saying “oh they build with sticks and mud” like we don’t do the same thing. Stick-built is a fucking category of Victorian house! Stucco is just mud! Plaster is just mud! Adobe is just mud! Clay is just mud! EVERYONE builds with sticks and mud! It’s very telling that people only use words like “sticks” and “mud” when they’re being insulting. Buddy I live in a house made of sticks and mud too.

[snommelp]

[punkrorschach]

“As a chemical engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh who uses a power wheelchair, I figured it wouldn’t be long before I met one of these bots in a frustrating face-off on a narrow sidewalk. What I didn’t realize was how dangerous, and dehumanizing, that scenario might be.

The robot was sitting motionless on the curb cut on the other side of Forbes Avenue. It wasn’t crossing with the rest of the pedestrians, and when I reached the curb, it didn’t move as the walk signal was ending. I found myself sitting in the street as the traffic light turned green, blocked by a non-sentient being incapable of understanding the consequences of its actions.”

-Emily Ackerman

[zeldahime]

The article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-19/why-tech-needs-more-designers-with-disabilities

Lessons From My Standoff With an Autonomous Sidewalk Robot

A life-threatening encounter with AI technology convinced me that the needs of people with disabilities need to be engineered into our auton

[mosscrab]

[ID: three screenshots. The first is a perspective article by CityLab. It’s headline reads “My fight with a sidewalk robot.” The paragraph below reads “A life threatening encounter with AI technology convinced me that the needs of people with disabilities need to be engineered into our autonomous future.” Below the paragraph is a picture of a small rectangular sidewalk robot moving along a sidewalk.

The second screenshot is a tweeted picture by an unknown user of six sidewalk robots going down the side of the street, with a car trying to pull between two of them. There are two replies below it, the first reply is by Adrian Lopez @PaladinZilch and reads “Wow. Imagine being in a wheelchair and seeing that.” The second reply is by I [flaming heart emoji] You @IAm444x and reads “oh god the tech bros made car traffic for sidewalks [crying emoji].”

The third screenshot is a reply tweet by Will Jackson @geologywill that reads “A few weeks ago… it took 5 minutes for their sensors to figure out how to get out of the standoff… Enjoyed every second of it.” Below is a picture of three sidewalk robots caught in a circle at an outdoor bus stop, presumably stuck in their circle. End ID.]

[snommelp]

@a-square-6-28-496 here's a reblog with image IDs

[transhumanisticpanspermia]

The logic of these devices being "allowed" on the sidewalk, whether they've found a technical legal loophole for it or not, is complete nonsense.

Motorized vehicles aren't allowed on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is for pedestrians. Power chair users are considered pedestrians by specific exemption (and for good reason - that is a single human, using the most minimally disruptive means of locomotion available to them.)

This thing isn't a pedestrian. It's a miniaturized delivery van. They should be banned from the sidewalk. They might already be in most places under existing laws, and nobody is enforcing it.

[the-big-mood]

Clark Kent gaslighting Lois Lane into believing he’s not Superman.

[so-much-for-subtlety]

[riflebrass]

[tanadrin]

if a building sits empty for some period of time it should lose its listed status. like. if nobody even has a use for the thing it should not take up real estate indefinitely. i guess you don't want to just incentivize someone keeping a property empty so it can be torn down. but coupled with a sensible land value tax you could ensure that a building only ever remained vacant because truly no one has a use for it.

[afloweroutofstone]

One of the only real downsides to a land value tax is that it would reduce the number of abandoned buildings I can break into

[correctopinionhaver]

[luisonte]

Inventacos

[something-truly-evil]

me and my friends at the thingamabob and doohickey convention

[the-guilty-hero]

A request for a friend. My sense of humor is broken to the point that I spent half the stream laughing at the reference picture even after finishing the doodle. It's not perfect but sharing it in hopes it will make someone's day a little bit better!

[the-guilty-hero]

I received a very important art request to include an equally long friend for our long capy.

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

The linked article

[massivetittiesandwarcrimes]

This article is genuinely insane. I learned to read at the same time and it was completely different. I was taught to sound out the words and if I came across a word I didn't know, they did suggest we use context clues to figure out the meaning, but it was also made clear that that was not a perfect solution and the best option is always to look it up. But seriously, just a memorizing? That is inside.

[auxryn]

I taught English as a second language for over ten years. In order to become a proficient reader in English, most kids will need to be explicitly taught phonics. To become proficient in Japanese, you need to learn radicals.

Three-cueing is essentially crutches that help you get by but let you down eventually. It's very common when learning a foreign language, I misread kanji sometimes because I pattern-recognize based on context instead of really looking. The solution is to do some proper studying, but I don't wanna.

It's also interesting that this sort of contexual confabulation and pattern-recognizing is how LLMs work. Not sure what to do with that.

[thechekhov]

Absolutely fantastic article, but I do want to say that this...?

... Is absolutely terrifying in the context of all other anti-intellectualism happening right now. This guy is STILL pushing his 'observations' while denying evidence that it doesn't work.

[quasi-normalcy]

#the part where he says it doesn’t matter if a child reads horse instead of pony bc the meaning is the same is.. particularly dire 💀#it’s immediately obvious that this doesn’t work as soon as books don’t have pictures in them ???

Good thing that there aren't any texts where subtle differences in meaning are important or anything like that.

[lastoneout]

Kinda horrifying that I've seen three cuing defended on the grounds it's the correct way to teach kids with dyslexia to read and it's incredible to find out the guy who invented it doesn't believe dyslexia is a real thing.

I have dyslexia and I learned to read with phonics and I genuinely cannot fathom how anyone with dyslexia would benefit from not being taught phonics. All of my dyslexia education was focused on finding ways that I could slow down and see words distinctly so I could sound them out. I'm a really strong reader despite having dyslexia and I credit that to phonics. If I couldn't isolate a word and slowly sound it out I'd never be able to read anything.

Like I am fully wondering if I'm really a gifted reader or if I just got lucky and got taught to read correctly???? What the fuck????

[beemovieerotica]

[escuerzoresucitado]

[red-twist]

I feel like the audience of the first moving picture

[awfulpunk]

this is insanely racist and I haven't even seen much about this online yet

[checkyourasianbias]

after Bad Bunny won they added a Latin song category and after Rosé got three nominations the grammys added a k-pop/c-pop/j-pop category they have always been afraid of well-performing artists of color challenging white artists in mainstream categories