please god above can someone explain to me why we're still working on self driving cars when trains exist

"we're training them to interpret road signs!" Train goes same place every day. No road signs.

"when forced to choose between old lady and child, which is more ethical for the car to hit?" Fence around train track. Nobody on the road.

"people with disabilities preventing them from driving themselves can be independent" Yes but also. Train.

"reduces the dangers of fatigue with long distance trucking" Train.

"the technology is not yet price effective for the average driver" Train.

Seriously come on choo choo bitches let's goooooooooo

The thing that galls me above all else is that in the U.S. we had a train based public transport system up until the 1950s when the Ford Motor Company lobbied local governments for buses. The tracks were ripped up, or neglected and abandoned and now many places are spending huge amounts of money to put them back. In the Midwest where I live you could go from downtown to the outermost suburbs 100 years ago on the street car and the travel times were faster than what we have now given traffic, etc. It's fucking disgusting and it's capitalism at its worst.

“Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, has said he wants to see police further embrace the ‘endless’ potential of drones, citing Israel’s use of the technology as a blueprint after visiting the country last week.”

"In general, fascism can best be understood as bringing the methods of imperial rule in the colonies into the metropole."

I feel like in the rush of “throw out etiquette who cares what fork you use or who gets introduced first” we actually lost a lot of social scripts that the younger generations are floundering without.

A lot of tough situations where we now feel like we “don’t know what to do or say” had social scripts just a couple of generations ago and they might have been canned phrases or robotic actions but they could still be meant sincerely and unfortunately we haven’t replaced them with any more sincere or easier new script.

a lot of people are giving examples in the notes of things they just find annoying like not using headphones in public, but OP is talking about actual literal scripts of things to say in awkward situations

if you have a date or two with someone and you don't see a relationship developing? most millennials / gen Zers just end up ghosting. but a social script that might have been taught and rehearsed in the past could be:

"I really appreciated getting dinner with you the other night and I enjoyed your company, but I'm afraid I didn't feel a spark. I wish you the best, and hope you find that special someone!"

like it sounds kind of trite but it was at least something to say and it can still be meant with kind sincerity. it also communicates in 2 sentences that you don't want to see them romantically again, but there aren't any hard feelings about that. that's it!!! that's all it takes!!!

Another example is that at parties a lot of people talk about how awkward it is to mingle or talk to people they dont know. But at old timey parties that was traditionally the HOST'S job, and there was a specific scripted way of doing it that eased the process! The host would bring you in, introduce you and maybe even a little bit about you like what you did for a living, and then guide you to a group you could talk to. They didn't just let you in the door and then ditch you to fend for yourself in a sea of strangers. That would be unthinkable and no one would be surprised if a get-together like that wound up being awkward.

A really good host would actually provide a topic of conversation based on things you and the person they were introducing you to had in common.

At networking events I've gone to, where there's no host who knows everybody, good networkers pick up the slack. They go around the room once making just enough small talk to learn some useful info about a good portion of of the people in the room, and then circle back around and go, "Oh hey I was just talking to X over there and he's looking for someone who does Y for his next project; you should go talk to him." You can do something similar at parties, referring people to other people you made smalltalk with you have the same hobbies or like the same kind of movies.

Fascism sells a synthetic nostalgia.

As good a time as any to remind folks of the 14 properties of "ur-fascism" (described by Umberto Eco, who grew up in Italy under Mussolini, in his 1995 essay Ur-Fascism). Not all need be present for single regime to be fascist, but a Venn diagram of all fascist regimes will cover them all.

Beware of anyone that tells you:

"we have to oppress some people to make things right but don't worry, we're not talking about you"

They're not talking about you YET.

Oppression never stops when its just oppression for others. It doesn't stop until its oppression for all.

make your own foot scrub

please stop making me read this

soooooooooooo true

lauren boebert is an unhinged monster and we absolutely need to focus on that

but also let me point and laugh at the fact she got thrown out of a showing of the beetlejuice musical for furiously vaping, loudly singing, taking pictures with flash, and trying to give a through-the-jeans handy to her date, a democrat

what establishment politicians mean when they talk about reaching across the aisle i guess

yeah man it’d be wicked fucked up if i posted a picture of a private act good thing i only posted a picture her giving a hearty helping of beef strokemeoff through denim in a packed theater

@k-wame2 dude shut the fuck up lmao

i’m not sex shaming or expressing some horrible internalized misogyny.

i’m making fun of a literal fascist, who claims to stand for “family values,” for being a wildly out of control, inappropriate asshole during a play to the point MULTIPLE people complained until she was thrown out by security.

“it’s okay that she masturbated her partner while he shoved his hand in her bra in a packed theater with kids present, because they waited until the lights went down <3” is an insane argument, especially since theaters aren’t pitch black as evidenced by the fact the people around them saw and complained.

she claims lgbt+ people are sexual predators and pedophiles and legislates against our existence then turns around and tries to give a handjob in public near kids.

she fights against reproductive rights under the banner of being “pro life” then vapes in the face of a pregnant woman and refuses to stop when the woman asks her to.

she’s a hypocritical tar pit of a human being and i’m glad most of us are laughing.

I recently discovered laundry stripping and y’all, no matter how much of a crock of shit you think fast fashion is, you’re underestimating.

[image ID: a screenshot of the notes on this post, featuring several people indicating they want to know more. End ID.]

OKAY SO. You know how we talk about how one way fast fashion has made itself “necessary” is that the clothing looks like shit and feels horrible after just a few washes?

Let. Me. Tell. You. Something.

Laundry stripping is a process where you load your laundry into a tub or bin (I’ve been using my bathtub) with warm water, half a cup of borax, half a cup of washing soda, and half a cup of laundry soap (not detergent, SOAP, there’s a chemical difference). Leave it there for at least eight hours. I’ve been going for 12-24.

What you will come back to is a tub full of nearly-opaque black-gray-brown water that absolutely REEKS. This is normal. You are looking at (and smelling) hard water buildup, body sweat and oils that were embedded in the fabric, dead skin, and just regular grime.

Wring out your clothes. Throw them in the washer. (I like to do a spin-only cycle before going any further, because I have one of those washers that determines by weight how much water any given load needs.) Wash as usual.

You will notice I didn’t suggest any further pretreatment, and that’s because 1) you don’t want to layer too many chemicals on top of each other but also 2) you may not even need it.

When your clothes come out, check each one as it goes into the dryer, and if anything else s still stained, set it aside to run again with a regular pretreatment. One of the sweaters I did this with apparently did need a second treatment…to deal with what appears to have possibly been a hot chocolate stain that was previously invisible due to “well, it’s old” dinginess. I was planning to throw this sweater out. It looks almost new now. I need to wash it one more time for the probably-a-hot-chocolate stain, and then it needs to have the hem weighted to block it and bring it back to evenness, but dude. I wear my clothes to rags and I thought this thing was unfixable. “I need to reshape it” is nothing.

Remove clothes from dryer when done. Fucking MARVEL at the colors and how good the fabric feels. Give them a smell. Get righteously and royally angry that you can rejuvenate this stuff so easily, with a process that does take awhile but is 90% hands-off, but we’ve been trained to believe it’s all got to be binned once a year because discoloration and gross fabric is “normal wear and tear” and can’t be fixed.

It’s utterly unreal! I just pulled a seven-year-old work undershirt out of the dryer and this thing looks NEW!! It FEELS almost new!!! One of the shirts I hung up from the last load is older than some of the people on this site and it went from “I keep this to wear on laundry day, for sentimental reasons” to “I could actually wear this out of the house, it looks old but respectable”! The pajama bottoms I’m wearing were from Goodwill and they have BRIGHT YELLOW in them! I thought it was goldenrod!!

I do not know how often you’re supposed to do this (doing it every time can strip the dye out of your clothes, not to mention it’s way too much work to do every time), but once or twice per season seems respectable. I don’t wear white, so I can’t test the “it will make whites look almost-new as well” claim, but I’ve seen a lot of people on the cleaning subreddit attest that it works.

Just remember: WASHING soda. Not baking soda. I tried baking soda and a little bit happened, but not a lot.

Go forth. Rejuvenate your clothing. Strip your laundry.

"you're not man enough, not feminine enough"

so gender is something we can fail?

that means gender is not genetic and absolute and unchangeable

but something we can build and perform, and fail at (the standards they set) but also redefine?

if i can fail at being a woman, does that mean i'm not a woman? so does that make me another gender?

i agonized for 15 minutes about the wording of my post and you manage to simplify it with a perfect mean girls reference

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Maybe I'm a cynic but here's what I'm getting from this, and it's not great:

All of this, of course, is being done to try and increase "engagement" and sign-up metrics at the expense of their existing userbase, because in our current economy a product cannot exist in a static state, it has to chase the numbers to the bottom.

Fuck capitalism and this site, honestly. They have such a good thing going at the moment where this website is an actual usable platform and they're rushing to "capitalise on it" by enfuckening what's good about it.

Hey @staff have you guys heard about this neat feature called “reblogging”, it’s a great way for blogs you follow to share content from new and smaller creators, plus it’s free and easy to do

Which path should he choose?

The path of the warrior, the path of the scholar, or the path of the artist?

he should wander away and have a picnic while he thinks about what path to choose

Great idea! But where should he have the picnic?

Under the tree, or under the old fort?

By the sea, so he can enjoy the sound of the waves

A lovely choice!

Should he build a sandcastle to pass the time? Or perhaps go fishing?

Perhaps he could collect shells he finds interesting

Sounds fun!

Which shell should he pick up?

This one

That's not a shell, it's a tiny earpiece.

Should he listen to music? Or to the mysterious pre-recorded message?

He should give it back to the crab in the largest shell, they thought they had lost their wave-pod and are grateful he found it!

The crab wants to give a gift in return.

Should he accept the gift of power, or the gift of knowledge?

the gift of friendship :)

Friendship acquired!

Should they celebrate with pizza or ice cream?

The crab friend cannot eat either of those! Let's split a nice seaweed salad instead. :)

So many options!

Should they get tossed salad, wiggly salad, or spiky salad?

Seasar salad

Nothing beats getting it straight from the source

Should they use scissors or claws to cut the seaweed?

What about that sword in the first panel?

The circle is complete.

Through choices, friendship, and salad, he found his way to the path of the warrior. But he won't walk it alone.

Their path is just beginning, but this story is over.

Thank you to everyone who participated!

This is somehow both the epitome and antithesis of "yes, and" and it FASCINATES me

"No, and"

dr who’s on first, doctor strange is on second and doctor house is on third. theres no way theyre getting through a single inning

so who’s on first?

That’s right 👍🏻

that’s strange

No, he’s on second.

Well how’s he on second if he’s on first?

No no no, House is on third. Second base is Strange.

Well this whole darn thing is strange but what I’m asking is who’s on first?

Naturally.

Who?

Naturally.

So Naturally is the first baseman?

No. The first baseman is Who.

Well I don’t know that so how’s about you tell me?

House is on Third.

I’m not asking you about third base I’m asking you about first base.

Who’s on first!

This is horrible

Dr Horrible is the pitcher, not first base

That’s not what I’m asking about! No!

Dr No is in the outfield, but let’s not worry about them right now.

oh you're in a horror film/book and your phone died/has no bars? how boring. I think phones in horror SHOULD work. they should ding only to have the protagonist check and find nothing. they should get calls from somebody you don't know but is still somehow in your contacts. google maps should lead you to one place, no matter what address you type in.

phones are such a big part of our daily lives, removing them from horror removes the horror from our experience. what if the horror felt like it could happen to you, right here, right now? what if it felt like it was already happening?

call 911 and something that is definitely not a person picks up.

call 911 and get an operator only for the call to become increasingly weirder and more sinister until you realize that whatever picked up is not there to help.

text messages from someone who's dead. voicemails that sound like dead air until you turn the volume all the way up.

emergency alerts for weather that doesn't happen on earth.

Your phone rings - but it's your phone number on the screen. You answer it, but all you hear is heavy, laboured breathing. You go to say something, only to hear your voice on the other end tell you "It's too late," and hang up.

You get a message from a number you don't recognise. It's a picture of you from behind. You turn and see there's nobody there. When you look back at your phone, you see the sender has sent another text - "Sorry, wrong number."

Your phone rings - it's a private number. You answer it, only to feel the sensation of something licking your ear.

You wake up to find a voicemail. You play it back, only to hear an autotuned version of your own voice reciting a Bible passage - 1 Peter 2: 18-20.

You get an emergency alert. It says "I'm sorry."