no babe, lets use the good china

reblog to give the person you reblogged this from a fucking break

‘how would other people describe you’ why would i know this

It drives me insane how many people dont realise how often they break the law and that if the full force of it was ever applied life would basically be unliveable. Like between traffic violations, petty workplace theft, account sharing and piracy alongside how common it is to have been in posession of some illegal drug at some point in your life. People still manage to get away with thinking "criminals" are people who commit crimes not just populations that are surveilled enough to be routinely prosecuted

Just remembering that time when like half the Australian government were not eligible to be in government and none of them even realised

not only that, but because crime is penalized with fines there are ways in which society wouldn’t function correctly if everyone did follow the law.

think about how crazy that is. Parts of our society are structured so that if everybody did the right thing it would break the system.

off the top of my head i remember a debate in Santa Cruz when i lived there because they wanted to remove like 8 parking spots overlooking the beach to make that spot better for the public and i think safer for cyclists, and there was pushback from the city because those parking spots were metered and they needed the revenue from those spots

and everyone was like it’s 50 cents an hour on 8 spots, how much revenue could it be, and it turned out that what the city was relying on was the money from parking tickets on unpaid meters, which turned out to be quite a lot of money each year.

just one of the many ways that our system is designed such that crime is actually a necessary feature

So at my workplace, we fund a Food Is Free shelf. It's the basics: take what you need, give what you can - our town has a high level of poverty, there's a cost of living crisis, be the good you want to see in the world etc etc.

Today we had a guy knock on the door and ask if we had a plastic bag he could use to carry a few things - I said sure, got him a plastic bag, and he started packing up his 2 rolls of toilet paper, his 3 or 4 foodstuff items. He said he'd been to a funeral out of town (1500 kms away) and spent his paycheck on fuel - he was only broke till Friday, he said.

And I said, well I'm glad we could help, it's why we have the shelf. We want the community to use it.

And he said:

But people ABUSE it! I've seen people take heaps of stuff from it - and they don't even have kids or anything. And it's fair enough, some people are struggling until the next paycheck, but other people just ABUSE it. You need a sign that says TAKE ONE ITEM ONLY or something. I've taken something from here maybe twice, but I've seen people coming round every week! I've even put stuff on the shelf! Yeah, you need CAMERAS or something. People abuse it.

So here is a man who is actively utilising a public resource that we created to support our local community...And yet he is so brainwashed by capitalism into thinking that people don't deserve basic needs - if they're not working hard, or maybe they're struggling but they don't have it As Bad as others, or they're using a FREE RESOURCE more often than HE thinks is acceptable. He thinks that we should use security cameras to crack down on people "STEALING" from the Food is FREE shelf. Like he's more worthy, like he's a better person, because he doesn't need as much help as others might.

Sometimes, when something is free, people might abuse it. But isn't it better to offer the support to people who need it? To offer an opportunity for people to get back on their feet (even if they're only broke till Friday)? To provide help, no questions asked and no conditions needed?

So what if people abuse it - isn't it worth it if helps someone?

#you run into this mindset all the time in mutual aid#we had people fighting over clothes at the free store on the regular#and it's like... we have dozens of boxes of clothes in the box#we're running out of space for clothes#PLEASE take trash bags full of clothes#go sell them on the side of the road if you want that's literally not our business#no one does that because they're doing well financially

^^^ My experience with free stores is that there is usually too much and you kinda wish people would take more. Our consumer society is wasting such a massive amount of food, games, books, movies, food... the only thing that are ever in short supply are the things that are build to break quickly like smartphones.

Spitballing with the fellas on discord and we've come up with a Star Trek character we want to see: A 200-year-old top Vulcan diplomat attending a function and laughing boisterously and slapping backs with everyone and then just relaxing into resting bitch face the moment nobody is watching him. He takes his job deadly seriously and studied parties extensively in the diplomatic academy. Every year he's brushing up on new developments in party theory. He knows every party nuance you could possibly think of, for the sake of intergalactic relations. Peace in the galaxy depends on it. It's weird but you gotta meet people where they're at, he thinks.

Sarek fucking hates this guy and it's 100% envy

human diplomat: [laughs at joke]

vulcan diplomat (to himself): this is great. I’m going to get a good grade in Party, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve,

had an autism moment at the computer part store today

I'd be stealing all of these for my son to play with lmao

Everyone responding to this with absolute lust is getting me lmaooo we are all One Autism together

girl help I'm getting they/them'd by well-meaning people who don't know what a tomboy is

This feeling is strange and complicated. On the one hand it's legit quite cool that nonbinary pronouns are becoming more widespread! On the other, I've spent my whole life pursuing interests and hobbies and ideals that weren't seen as particularly feminine, and when I was younger this was a major source of bullying and stress alongside some generalized misogyny taking the form of "you can't do or be anything you think is cool because you are innately inferior and to do otherwise means violating your nature," and it took me a while to conclude that this was just straight horseshit top to bottom and I could do whatever I wanted and present myself however I wanted without in any way being Not A Girl, and now it's like the exact same concept has flipped sides and is coming from a point of theoretical validation but still calculates out to "that's not very ladylike of you, you must be something else". anyway she/her thanks gang

I think it's like. the understanding that the gender binary is a small part of a much wider space of identities is separate from the understanding that a lot of that gender binary is a false dichotomy that artificially walls off universal human experiences behind specific pronouns and while the first concept is gaining wider understanding the second is lagging a little, which means "I am a girl and I like doing boy things" reads as "oh I've heard about this, you must be one of the Others who don't do the binary" rather than "the concept of 'boy things' is stupid from the jump"

just to be 100% clear

what this post is NOT talking about: using they/them pronouns for someone you don't know, aren't sure of, hasn't had a chance to introduce themselves, etc.

what this post IS talking about: my highly personal experience seeing some people "correcting" my commenters that were using she/her pronouns for me, because, despite me exclusively using she/her pronouns and saying so whenever asked, through no action of mine they had gotten the idea that I was using "they/them".

People say “go big or go home” as if going home is a bad thing. Like hell yeah I’ll go home… I can nap when I get there.

In economics we divide the population into income quintiles -- top 20%, bottom 20%, etc

The Biden Economy has been very, very good to the bottom 20% -- I know because I am in that quintile and under the Biden Presidency I have seen multiple SNAP increases, the best COLA adjustments for Social Security in four decades, Medicare now pays my utilities, and because I'm part of the Affordable Connectivity Program, they can now never turn off my internet even if I can't afford to pay the bill.

The problem with the poorest people being the one who benefits the most? Is that it doesn't resonate as a media story. The media is not catering to that bottom quintile -- we don't have the expendable income their advertisers are seeking.

But if you want to elect a POTUS who is honestly helping the people who need it the most, you should be an enthusiastic Biden supporter. It won't make splashy news headlines, you're not even going to find MSNBC going GUESS WHAT THE POORS ARE DOING BETTER all the time because it's really not a sexy story. But it's a real story. A true story.

I'm just really sick of the pseudo-leftist takes that characterize Biden and the Democrats as 'conservative' or assertions that they don't have policy platforms except 'we're not the Republicans.' Such commentary sounds intelligent but only in the way Libertarian commentary sounds intelligent: you have to not think critically at all to some to such absurd conclusions. Democrats are working within a broken system and doing the best they can. You wanna fix the system? Great, I'm onboard, but smearing the only people trying to help is not going to get you anywhere.

Source

Source

same as it ever was

Nimona (2023) dir. Troy Quane, Nick Bruno

walkable cities also means sittable cities send tweet

some people are responding to this like its a joke and im going to assume u are the type of people to say "its only a 3 minute walk" when i tell them the nearest bench is too far away

also anyone who thinks "3 minutes isnt THAT bad" you will be old one day. and you will wish the bench was closer

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOO

do note that this will probably mean US phones will follow this standard as well, as manufacturing streams are much easier to maintain as streamlined as possible, and having two separate standards like this makes it more of an expensive hassle for a company

this is also known as the Brussels Effect, where a regulation in one part of the world (usually the EU) results in new global standards.

please let this jump to laptops and tablets and everything else

Source (the one screenshotted at the top of the post):

"For "portable batteries" used in devices such as smartphones, tablets, and cameras, consumers must be able to "easily remove and replace them." This will require a drastic design rethink by manufacturers, as most phone and tablet makers currently seal the battery away and require specialist tools and knowledge to access and replace them safely.

Apple has already been forced by the European Union to change from a Lightning port to a USB-C port on iPhones, with the iPhone 15 expected to be the first to make the switch. Now it seems Apple will need to figure out how to allow access to the battery inside future iPhones, as will every other smartphone manufacturer.

The new rules also stipulate strict targets for collecting waste and recovering materials from old batteries. The percentages for each increase at set intervals between now and 2031, at which point 61% waste collection must be achieved and 95% of materials must be recovered from old portable batteries. There will also be minimum levels of recycled content used in new batteries required, but only "eight years after the entry into force of the regulation.""

-via PCMag, June 16, 2023

Oh hell yeah!!! I can't fucking wait!

ALL my android phones up until like 2018 easily opened up in the back so i could replace the battery myself and the fact that went away has been INFURIATING. i cannot WAIT to be able to change my own battery again.