flowery words

i got the job

Litany against unemployment.

in the latest cyber-news: the internet archive has lost their case against 4 major publishing houses (verge article). they’re going to appeal, but this is still a bad outcome. the fate of the internet is currently hanging in the balance because 4 multibillionare publishing groups missed out on like $15 of combined revenue during the pandemic because of the archive’s online library service. it’s so fucking stupid.

for those who don’t know what the internet archive is, it’s a virtual library full of media. books, magazines, recordings, visuals, flash games, websites - a lot of these things either don’t exist anymore or cannot be found & bought. heard of the wayback machine? that’s part of the internet archive. it is the most important website to exist, and i don’t say that lightly. if the internet archive goes down, the cultural loss will be immeasurable.

so how can you help?

and finally…

cannot stress enough that donating to the internet archive to help them appeal this without going broke is the most important thing you can do right now. my day job revolves around fulfilling digital article and book scan requests at an academic library and a huge part of that is borrowing from other libraries that do controlled digital lending (incl. the internet archive!). copyright law is already hugely restrictive on what we can and can't lend, and we absolutely don't have the option to pirate anything for our patrons due to being a large academic institution. it's difficult to overstate just how bad this ruling could end up being for libraries that have digital lending programs, esp ones that rely on CDR for old/archival/hard-to-find texts.

I'm incredibly fucking disappointed at the bootlickers in the comments claiming that the IA steals from small creators. Eliminating a valuable research, academic and cultural resource because you've bought into the fiction that "potential sales" are lost sales is exactly what these big corporations want. You aren't saving small creators by swatting down a non-profit, you're allowing ginormous publishing monopolies to consolidate even further while they smile a snake's smile over independent creators.

The Internet Archive is absolutely vital for my work and research. Without it, a good chunk of Welsh LGBTQ+ history would be inaccessible. The Welsh books hosted on IA are indexed and searchable, meaning any Welsh LGBTQ+ terminology can be searched for. Otherwise, me sitting down to read every. single. Welsh book ever published *just in case* it contains one of the terms in my data is an impossible task (Welsh books have been published since 1546) . In fact, this is something I refer to in my methodology for this very reason.

I'm also broke as hell rn but when I get the chance I'm gonna donate. Without IA, you can kiss goodbye to a *massive* chunk of academia. My lecturers use IA. So not just like, undergrads and PhD students, but seasoned academics will lose access to a major resource if IA stopped existing.

The argument of "potential sales lost" also makes no sense from an author's perspective. Published authors are usually paid an advance before publication. After that point, they would have to sell an obscene amount of books to qualify for extra pay from those sales, so many authors are unbothered by someone reading their book for free. Libraries allow people to read books for free and IA is essentially one giant library. It even has a feature where if you're reading a book and "check it out" for an hour, no-one else can read the book your reading until the time runs out. Just like a normal library. Potential sales lost to the company is just like when companies claim to have lost millions at a start of the year when they haven't actually lost any money at all. They just didn't earn as much money as they were predicting.

IA provides a vital service and we should be fighting to ensure it isn't lost.

Seconding all of the above -- Since the IA lost its case, I've noticed a number of books have rapidly become inaccessible for me. The negative impact this has had on my work can't be understated, as I've been left without a crucial resource for my research. I. don't believe there's a single article I've written that hasn't been impacted by this, with me often having to scrambling to get access to sources that are rare and/or our of print. I have the advantage of a well-stocked uni library that is good at ILLs, but this is a taste of what's going to come if this isn't resolved in the Archive's favor.

I'm one of those small creators IA 'steals' from. I recently had to pull down my old website, with relationship advice content going back over a decade. One o fthe first things I put on my new websie was 'you can find the old stuff on the wayback machine' because I can't afford to keep a public-facing archive of my old stuff, but so long as the wayback machine exists, people can still it and still be helped by it.

I am incredibly grateful that the archive 'stole' my website and made a permanent copy when I couldn't.

I've seen this before, but it's been years and it just came across my Twitter in its dying days. The words are from a favorite author of mine, Maggie Stiefvater, and they are the words I most need to hear when it comes to dealing with chronic pain and illness. I didn't need this the first time I saw it, six years ago. I need it now. Maybe you do, too.

My dude, I might not even want my businesses to run like a business, the way businesses have been run lately.

Businesses? In THIS economy??

Similarities between Iraq War protests and Palestine Protests.

Source 1

Source 2

Spoiler alert: shoe guy is now widely seen as a hero

Just in case you were wondering where everyone's gonna fall in the "right side of history" debate on this one

The shoe guy’s name is Muntadhar al-Zaidi (he is still alive and active), and yes, the pro-Palestinian student protesters are on the right side of history, and yes, they will be remembered as heroes — far moreso than the cowardly college presidents & conservative politicians who sicced the police on anti-war college protesters dissenting against war crimes and calling for a permanent ceasefire.

Les Misérables, Volume I / Book V / Chapter III, trans. Hapgood

What does it take to teach a bee to use tools? A little time, a good teacher and an enticing incentive. Read more here: http://to.pbs.org/2mpRUAz

Credit: O.J. Loukola et al., Science (2017)

@clockworkrobotic

“Friend? Friend push ball? I push ball. I do good.”

Bees.  Smart enough to push a ball, not smart enough to not be fooled by a stick masquerading as a bee. 

maybe they know and they’re just being polite

Other dimensional beings are undoubtedly amazed at what human beings will accept as human beings too. “But it’s just a stick with a person on it.”

#excuse me neil but what the FUCK was that #thanks for that terrifying thought (nooby-banana)

NEIL WHY. WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT.

This turns up on my dashboard. And I read it and am impressed that someone writes exactly the post that I’d write, without actually reading the name of the person who posted it.

And then I’m puzzled at all the Neil Why’s, and realise that this was me in the Wayback Long-ago.

At least I’m consistent.

And, I should point out, we are no closer to being able to spot the extra-dimensional stick “people” who move unobserved among us.

It’s reassuring how tumblr-like this entire interaction is. Including not reading the url

Tips for writing those gala scenes, from someone who goes to them occasionally:

As someone who spent over a decade catering luxury events, let me add some back of house info:

After the occupation, the princess was confined to the palace.

Once a month she'd be taken on a walk around the city, heavily guarded of course, to show the people that she still lived. It also served, of course, as a reminder of what they stood to lose if they made trouble. The princess did her best go wave and smile and give the people what encouragement she could.

The rest of the time, her life was spent in musty rooms and dusty towers. She filled most of her time scouring the castle for materials which she would sew into more and more elaborate outfits, which she would show off on the days when she was allowed outside.

Indeed, the public loved their princess and her dresses so much they'd often sketch or paint them along the route and pass the images on so that all could see the princess at least was well.

This pleased the occupiers for two reasons. First: it kept the princess out of trouble. Second: it gave them a reason to sneer and they did love a good sneer.

"What a vain creature she is!" They would remark.

"Doesn't even care we murdered her brothers so long as she gets enough satin to make her little dresses!" They squawked.

This was unfair, of course, for to call her creations "little dresses" was to call Queen Murderfun the Needlessly Genocidal "a tad piquey". Her dresses were gravity-defying wonders lace and pearl. They were thunderstorms captured in velvet and waterfalls summoned in silk. She was a wizard with silk.

Still, she bore their mockery with a tight smile and careful deference.

"Please, good sirs, my home, my people and my city now belong to you. Let me keep, at least, this one last joy."

And they sneered and they crowed most unpleasantly, but they let her keep her sewing room.

Of course, they would have known their mockery to be doubly unfair had they realised the true purpose of the princess's elaborate designs. For hidden in the intricate embroiderings across her gowns, jackets and fans, the princess had encoded secret (and very detailed) messages. When she would go on her monthly walk, the city's loyalists would line the route, sketching down the patterns to decode later.

Thus did the princess transmit all the occupiers' secrets (unearthed while supposedly 'searching the castle for old fabrics') to the city and thus did she build her resistance.

On the day the revolution finally came, she girded herself in armour of thick spider silk and whale bone. She cut a fine figure with a lacy handkerchief in her top pocket and a razor sharp knitting needle keeping her hair up.

As she waltzed through the castle to open the door for her army, the Usurper King tried to stop her and she simply unfolded her handkerchief and showed it to him.

Upon seeing the impossible arcane pattern emblazoned across it, he fell to the floor with blood streaming from his eyes.

She always had been a wizard with silk.

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

Salute to our troops (70s careerwomen who put their hard-earned dollars into homemade gay erotica)

It was women with secretarial jobs doing a lot of the heavy lifting, if memory serves correctly.

They had training in type setting, could churn things out quickly, knew how to organise mailing lists, and had easy access to Expensive High Tech like photocopiers.

Boss make a dollar, she makes a dime. That's why she's printing Kirk X Spock zines on company time.

Godzilla takes a nap in the Colosseum GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE (2024)

I thought Godzilla was known for destroying buildings, but here they are peacefully lying down for a nap in an already partially destroyed building seemingly without causing more damage.

Are partially destroyed buildings Godzilla nesting spots? Is this like leaving some dead trees standing for the woodpeckers, etc.?? Like, you need to leave some large, ruined buildings out for the Godzilla(s) to use, for the health of the species and because if there are enough to choose from, they don't need to knock anything down???

if you’re white and wanna write a poc character and feel awkward about it i implore you to ignore any twitblr stuff treating it as a massive ethical burden and instead come in more with the same mindset you’d have if you wanted to write about idk firefighters but didn’t know anything about firefighters so you do... research. Like fuck off with the weird kinda creepy calls for spiritual introspection you’re not writing about god damn space aliens you’re writing about humans and if you think you need more perspective of different life experiences just read?

If I were writing about firefighters I'd also, in addition to just reading about them, take advantage of Our Blessed Internet to ask actual firefighters about how shit works. I'd do the same for a minority I'm not a part of.

I remember when there was this LiveJournal community where you could just ask about anything you needed for your novel - medicine, professions, vehicles, how things function in country X - and people who knew something about that would answer.

We need to bring this back.

And apparently just this summer they DID bring it back - it's called Little Details and it's on Dreamwidth!!!!

The Tzedakah box of my childhood home still lives on a shelf, perpetually filling with coins. I remember many from my time growing up: ironic piggy bank ones, ones made of ornate filigree, those made of classic tin, ones created by community members to raise money for insulin — Tzedakah is a mainstay of Jewish life because we recognize that Tzedakah is life affirming work.

People often ask, what’s the difference between Tzedakah and charity? Charity is a choice; one often made out of pity. Tzedakah is a moral imperative. An easily recognizable definition of a Mitzvah: it is both a commandment and a good deed.

Taking care of one another is required of us.

If you want to the TV show the Good Place, you might have seen Jewish philosophy spoken to you when Chidi gave his speech, “What do we owe to each other?” His work is based on that of TM Scanlon, an ethical philosopher who has a book by the same question. Fictional Chidi comes to the conclusion, “to put it simply: we are not in this alone.”

Tzedakah is physical manifestation of the idea that we owe to each other care, love, and humanity. While this post focuses on monetary aspects, they also aspects like hiring another person, teaching, training, entering into partnerships.

It is our duty to care for one another and expect nothing in return, for it is our duty.

As such, you can go to link in my bio to find literal life saving opportunities. We are so close to reaching the goals of these 3 families.

unsolicited parenting advice of the day tell your kids what to expect! If your two year old is anxious about when dad is going to get home from work, teach him to recognize what patterns indicate that dad is coming home soon! After lunch we will do an activity and then clean and THEN dad will get home. Listen when the calendar day starts with an S dad does not have to go to work!!

and if something goes wrong and today does NOT go according to the plan your little guy expects, tell him!! Hey, dad has to go to work after all today, but he will be home after lunch! Today dad has to get groceries after work, so he’ll be home later than normal. But he will return with more bananas! Focus on the positives too, give them things they can understand. Don’t just say “not today,” they understand the concept of grocery stores and unexpected trips. Just tell them the problem. You’d hate being in the dark about everything that happens to you also. Let them control their situation, even if it’s just their own emotions and expectations.

or even! Teach them to read an analogue clock! Let me tell you, church nursery in the 1.5-3.5 age group got so much less stressful and anxious for EVERYONE when I taught my kids how to read the clock. They don’t have to ask me anymore how much time is left and fish for answers I can’t give them. They know that their guardians will come for them when the long stripe on the clock touches the 2, and that if they aren’t there then then they’re LATE and they get to hold this over their parents head. Because they know their parents can be late. And they LOVE knowing when this has occurred. There is so much less anxiety.

anyway explain stuff to your kids, they want to know. This has been an unsolicited parenting advice PSA

Whoa this is actually great advice. Totally forgot kids can’t read clocks until we teach them. No wonder they’re stressed out all the time I would be too if I didn’t have my phone to check the time. That’s useful OP thank you.

obsessed w eliot for real. he's like a cat that jumps into your lap and immediately bites you