American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Simplified)

Quenya (LOTR fantasy elf language)

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lookingatyou2002

ancestorswatching

In many cultures, ethnic groups, and nations around the world, hair is considered a source of power and prestige. African people brought these traditions and beliefs to the Americas and passed them down through the generations.

In my mother’s family (Black Americans from rural South Carolina) the women don’t cut their hair off unless absolutely necessary (i.e damage or routine trimming). Long hair is considered a symbol of beauty and power; my mother often told me that our hair holds our strength and power. Though my mother’s family has been American born for several generations, it is fascinating to see the beliefs and traditions of our African ancestors passed down. We are emotionally and spiritually attached to our hair, cutting it only with the knowledge that we are starting completely clean and removing stagnant energy.

Couple this with the forced removal and covering of our hair from the times of slavery and onward, and you can see why so many Black women and men alike take such pride and care in their natural hair and love to adorn our heads with wigs, weaves, braids, twists, accessories, and sharp designs.

Hair is not just hair in African diaspora cultures, and this is why the appropriation and stigma surrounding our hair is so harmful.

I reblogged this last month, tagged it, and said “might as well see if it works.” I used this video as a reference to find all the forms that i needed (which is A LOT, especially if you’re a dependent) and sent them through the mail, not really allowing myself to hope.

dude.

$2,714 of medical debt from my top surgery - gone. im shaking this was such a weight on me for 2 years and it fucking worked. what the fuck.

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tonysopranobignaturals-deactiva

harpyhormones

its disconcerting to me how a lot of leftists view/approach technology

like viewing it as this separate THING, often viewing it as like inextricably linked to capitalism, and theres a lot of pushback, rightfully so, against capitalists like musk and bezos and gates and others who offer technological solutions as an ALTERNATIVE to social change

and we should oppose that as fiercely as we do, but then so many of you cant think past two seconds and decide that therefore all technology is INHERENTLY an alternative to social change, and whether you hold that belief explicitly or not, its very clear that you hold that belief on some level by the way you talk about leftism, the way you see talk about any technological progress or any proposed technological solutions to problems as “lol capitalism will suggest [x] before just [doing y social solution]”

like we need the social solutions! the technological solutions are useless at best without them! the social solutions are non-negotiable and we should be fighting for them, but im just gonna come out and say its juvenile and downright fucking stupid and shortsighted to act like its one or the other, to act like any proposed technological solutions are a distraction or that they inherently come from a place of trying to negate social solutions

the capitalists offering many of these solutions see them that way, but are you all so fucking naive that you think all the people working on technological solutions to climate change, or disease, or the way we approach work all labor under the idea that the things they work on are panacea, that they obviate the need for social change?

even with your most idealized revolutions the world will still turn to ecological catastrophe without technological solutions. even with better quarantine measures enabled by paying people to stay at home and give them the resources they need to isolate, we will still need technological solutions. even with more just medical systems that take care of people as they need, we will still need technological solutions

its mind boggling to me how many of you will mystify these issues, treat technology as some fetish, some discrete object that can be treated as a monolith where you can debate the morality of Technology as a whole as opposed to it being an inseparable part of humanity, of how we interact with the world

it drives me fucking insane

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donnerpartyofone

unlikely-ualentine

I dont really like making rebloggable posts but I haven’t seen anyone mention them yet: terracotta heaters are really easy and effective DYI heaters for cold emergencies and I think it might be helpful considering, you know

TDLR, place a candle of any size down, and put a terracotta pot (as large as possible preferably) over it, with something non-flammable and balanced to keep the bottom an inch or two off the ground, like bricks.

The candle will heat the terracotta, which will put off heat, while the space underneath lets smoke out and oxygen in. I’ve used these all 3 times we had outages here in Maine during blizzards to keep my aquariums warm, the weather outside had been easily -20 F with high winds, and not only was I cozy, that shit kept the water 10 degrees above room temperature. If it can heat the aquariums, it’ll heat a small room.

They work so much better than you’d think, the heat they put off is insane. Obviously be careful because smoke and open flame, but they’re very easy to make and just need an eye kept on them on all times.

Don’t touch the heated pot bare-handed, it’ll burn like a motherfucker, they get VERY hot. Use thick oven mitts or layered rags to remove pot, put the candle out first if you can manage. Don’t do more than one or two in a non-ventilated or closed room, it’s still making smoke and that can make it harder to breathe.

[ID: Two bricks are laid flat, two bricks are stacked on top on their sides. A candle is in a jar inbetween and is lit. A large terracotta pot is balanced on the second, higher set of bricks so it is above the candle and off the ground. End Id]

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tonysopranobignaturals-deactiva

left-reminders

volaee

I feel like he resigned so the story that broke about him stealing tips was entirely buried. Same day. 2/2/2020

Amazon ordered to pay $61.7m fine for withholding drivers’ tips

The company has agreed not to change driver wages without first gaining their informed consent

The Independent

paganinpurple

Please keep in mind that he resigned as CEO, but is becoming the Chief Executive to the Board instead.

So now he’s the CEO’s boss with all the power and none of the public spotlight

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woluf

WHAT’S GOING ON IN RUSSIA RIGHT NOW

Some of you might’ve heard about the situation with the government vs opposition that we’re dealing with right now, but I’m gonna give a brief explanation, how it started / how it’s going so to say.

In August 2020 Alexey Navalny, one of the leaders of the russian opposition, was poisoned with a nerve agent “Novichok”, which was a clear murder attempt. He was transported to Germany to get proper care and over there, while recovering, he and his team had a series of investigations of his murder attempt and basically they proved that it was all organised by the government / FSB (Federal Security Service of Russia / P*tin. He’s posted videos about his investigation, here’s the one of him exposing the whole killer team. He also made another video where he undercover called one of the killers and that dude basically confirmed it all, you can watch it here, english subtitles provided on both videos. I know it all feels like some crazy tv show, trust me i’m still speechless.

Anyway, last week he announced that he’s ready to go back home to Russia. Thousands of people came to the airport to show their support, but the bunker grandpa (our joke of a president) was not happy with that and police was everywhere at that airport taking people for doing nothing but standing there. Right when the plane was about to land, they changed the airports (*pretends to be shocked*). They landed and at the customs Alexey was detained by police. The reasons: something that they imagined themselves but also Alexey has a probation and he wasn’t checking at the Moscow police station twice a month….. since he was in Germany recovering from a murder attempt.

The next day they somehow held a court hearing right at the police station which is literally against the law and he’s being arresting for 30 days. And that gives everyone a push. In his videos he asks people not to protest for him but to protest for themselves and their right to have a voice and for that voice to be heard and not be murdered and, if you’re not dead, be jailed because you have a different opinion. For years our country has been literally degrading, swimming in the corruption and lies just so Mr. Poo has his throne. Elections are being forged, at this point everyone knows about it but they frightened people enough to not say a word. The whole world thinks so low of us or scared of us because of the power that the Tsar holds and smart, reasonable people here are so fed up with that.

And the final part and what was the last drop of patience for lost of people here, Navalny’s team posted a whole film-investigation about the palace P*tin owns on the coast of the Black sea which was built with the stolen money. Just a few highlights about that palace: the approximate cost of it is around 100 billion rubbles / $1,4 billion, the size of it is over 17,6k square meters, it has tea/wine houses, wine gardens, amphitheatre, a hockey rink, casino, furniture with millions on price tags, hookah bar, bedchambers with jacuzzis, and people’s personal faves, aqua disco, $2k toilet brushes with toilet paper holders, a pole at the hookah bar and a room for dirt. You can watch the whole video here, trust me you won’t regret it. It’s smashing all the views records.

Just in comparison to the cost of only that palace, our pensions for people of age are around 10k rubbles / $130, our standard salaries are around $300 a month and that if you’re lucky, in the regions it can be twice less. During the pandemic the government gave people n o t h i n g that could’ve helped even a tiny bit. But golden toilet brushes at the Black sea cost are always provided.

Tomorrow, January 23rd, there are going to be mass protests all across the country where people want to show their civil position, to scream for the rights that are being taken away from us with every day passing with more and more ridiculous laws, to show support to Alexey and his family and ask for his freedom, and just to show that people want to see their homeland get justice, respect and love it deserves. Chances of things getting messy are very high since the government doesn’t allow us to have peaceful protests (unless its allowed protests which like…they never allow them so here’s another way of silencing us). I’ll be posting things about it as soon as I know, the ways to help and just spread information about what we have to deal with.

For now I’m gonna leave a link to an FBK site / Anti-Corruption Foundation, which is a non profit organization that investigates corruption cases in Russia. They also have a donation page which could always use some help, especially on the eve of protests (e.g. provide free lawyers to help people get out of police in case of arrests on protests).

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maxofs2d

Every few months, someone with more money and fame than knowledge spouts off a Grand Plan to leave Earth for somewhere else to escape our problems. And everyone who has dealt with the complexity of dynamic systems heaves an enormous sigh.

We can’t even create a stable sealed biome on Earth, where we’re operating within the geomagnetic field at standard temperature & pressure.

It’s the simplest version of a faked environment, yet we repeatedly fail. We don’t even bother pretending the space station is independent.

How exactly do we expect to successfully terraform another world to be Earthling-friendly when we’ve made our planet less hospitable?

We didn’t maintain Earth’s climate & we’re failing to correct back despite it getting noticeably less pleasant. We’re un-terraforming Terra.

If your dream is humans scattered across the planets & that’s what inspires you: Cool. Great. Love it, and you can push that dream forward with sustainability on Earth. Space requires intense reduce/reuse/recycle & green tech. Help us pass on Easy Mode so we can up the challenge.

In space, yesterday’s coffee is tomorrow’s coffee. If we don’t have that level of sustainability, we don’t have a shot of moving beyond Easy Mode.

Yes, the planet will survive our shenanigans. But people are substantially less hardy than rocks. Our survival depends on what we do. We can be smarter than algae, or we can follow the path of stromatolites. It’s our choice.

And this idolization of recreating company towns, but in space, where the boss controls the air supply? That’s a low-hanging fruit of dystopia. We don’t even need to look at labour history to recognize what a bad idea that is.

Source: https://twitter.com/mikamckinnon/status/1218716524795568128

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vrgoth

traggots

between this and that “gen z political revolution” playlist w zombie by the cranberries its rlly clear the gen z idea of revolution is just seeing things made irt past events that dont affect them and going “what if i took this out of context and removed all original meaning in order to try to make it about me”

traggots

actually i need to complain about this more cause im mad about it.

the image this is mimicking, this jacket worn by david wojnarowicz at a 1988 aids demonstration, cant be removed from the political context of the fact he was diagnosed with aids in the same year. it cant be removed from the political context of the fact people diagnosed with aids attending demonstrations was inherently a form of protest itself when propaganda surrounding aids told people false claims that sharing the same spaces, having any contact with, even just breathing the same air as someone with aids could give you aids.

it cant be removed from the political context of the fact in a 1991 memoir he spoke about the idea of people driving to washington dc and leaving the bodies of their loved ones killed by inaction over aids on the front steps of the white house. it cant be removed from the political context of the fact this inspired, four months after david wojnarowiczs death caused by aids in 1992, david robinson to scatter the ashes of his partner warren krause on the white house lawn as a protest against bushs inaction surrounding aids. it cant be removed from the political context of the fact david wojnarowizs own ashes were also scatted on the white house lawn in 1996.

the aids crisis in the us was not something which merely existed to provide acts of protest to be taken out of context and awkwardly vaguely mimicked by future generations, it was america seeing a disease that primarily affected people it deemed undesirable and responding by attempting genocide by inaction.

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cyberbullyinc

if ppl r bugging u abt "why is pansexuality biphobic and transphobic" heres a carrd that summerizes it rlly well w/ proof and historical sources

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anxietyproblem

Also instead of “problem behaviour” call it “distressed behaviour” for a more accurate picture of what the person is actually facing

I can’t reblog this enough, I will do it every damn time I see it from now to death.

themostineptthateverstepped

When someone frames your mental health issues as attention seeking behavior, problem behavior, or any other negatively-coded context, it creates an environment that makes you feel guilty, wrong, and selfish for struggling with things outside of your control. As a result, serious issues are allowed to arise in the absence of support.

zitasaurusrex

I’m sure someone has said it in here but I’m just adding for the sake of my own reblog:

This doesn’t mean you are obligated to give what you don’t have to someone just because they are having trouble. Understanding their distress and need for support are based on real problems doesn’t mean you have to give support when you aren’t able, or if doing so would cause you harm. Having empathy about of doesn’t mean that this behavior automatically isn’t potentially frustrating or exhausting.

Be gentle to yourself and others, but you can’t give from an empty bag and shouldn’t hurt yourself because of it.

this but also I absolutely seek attention. sometimes you just need someone calling you sexy

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lianedegrenade

attndotcom

If you don’t know who Johnnie Tillmon was, look her up.

Welfare is a Women’s Issue (1972) by Johnnie Tillmon

I’m a woman. I’m a black woman. I’m a poor woman. I’m a fat woman. I’m a middle-aged woman. And I’m on welfare.

In this country, if you’re any one of those things you count less as a human being. If you’re all those things, you don’t count at all. Except as a statistic.

I am 45 years old. I have raised six children. There are millions of statistics like me. Some on welfare. Some not. And some, really poor, who don’t even know they’re entitled to welfare. Not all of them are black. Not at all. In fact, the majority-about two-thirds-of all the poor families in the country are white.

Welfare’s like a traffic accident. It can happen to anybody, but especially it happens to women.

And that’s why welfare is a women’s issue. For a lot of middle-class women in this country, Women’s Liberation is a matter of concern. For women on welfare it’s a matter of survival.

Survival. That’s why we had to go on welfare. And that’s why we can’t get off welfare now. Not us women. Not until we do something about liberating poor women in this country.

Because up until now we’ve been raised to expect to work, all our lives, for nothing. Because we are the worst educated, the least-skilled, and the lowest-paid people there are. Because we have to be almost totally responsible for our children. Because we are regarded by everybody as dependents. That’s why we are on welfare. And that’s why we stay on it.

Welfare is the most prejudiced institution in this country, even more than marriage, which it tries to imitate. Let me explain that a little.

Ninety-nine percent of welfare families are headed by women. There is no man around. In half the states there can’t be men around because A.F.D.C. (Aid to Families With Dependent Children) says if there is an “able-bodied” man around, then you can’t be on welfare. If the kids are going to eat, and the man can’t get a job, then he’s got to go.

Welfare is like a super-sexist marriage. You trade in a man for the man. But you can’t divorce him if he treats you bad. He can divorce you, of course, cut you off anytime he wants. But in that case, he keeps the kids, not you.The man runs everything. In ordinary marriage, sex is supposed to be for your husband. On A.F.D.C., you’re not supposed to have any sex at all. You give up control of your own body. It’s a condition of aid. You may even have to agree to get your tubes tied so you can never have more children just to avoid being cut off welfare.

The man, the welfare system, controls your money. He tells you what to buy, what not to buy, where to buy it, and how much things cost. If things-rent, for instance-really cost more than he says they do, it’s just too bad for you. He’s always right.

That’s why Governor [Ronald] Reagan can get away with slandering welfare recipients, calling them “lazy parasites,” “pigs at the trough,” and such. We’ve been trained to believe that the only reason people are on welfare is because there’s something wrong with their character. If people have “motivation,” if people only want to work, they can, and they will be able to support themselves and their kids in decency.

The truth is a job doesn’t necessarily mean an adequate income. There are some ten million jobs that now pay less than the minimum wage, and if you’re a woman, you’ve got the best chance of getting one. Why would a 45-year-old woman work all day in a laundry ironing shirts at 90-some cents an hour? Because she knows there’s some place lower she could be. She could be on welfare. Society needs women on welfare as “examples” to let every woman, factory workers and housewife workers alike, know what will happen if she lets up, if she’s laid off, if she tries to go it alone without a man. So these ladies stay on their feet or on their knees all their lives instead of asking why they’re only getting 90-some cents an hour, instead of daring to fight and complain.

Maybe we poor welfare women will really liberate women in this country. We’ve already started on our own welfare plan. Along with other welfare recipients, we have organized so we can have some voice. Our group is called the National Welfare Rights Organization (N.W.R.O.). We put together our own welfare plan, called Guaranteed Adequate Income (G.A.I.), which would eliminate sexism from welfare. There would be no “categories”-men, women, children, single, married, kids, no kids-just poor people who need aid. You’d get paid according to need and family size only and that would be upped as the cost of living goes up.

As far as I’m concerned, the ladies of N.W.R.O. are the front-line troops of women’s freedom. Both because we have so few illusions and because our issues are so important to all women-the right to a living wage for women’s work, the right to life itself.

still relevant today

When I visited the United States Holocaust Museum for the first time, I was struck deeply by one wall with absolutely nothing on it, except for this quote:

“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Hitler often used it to cite how history would forget about his “final solution”, as they didn’t remember the Armenian genocide, did they?

My family is in America for the sole reason that the first Armenian genocide drove them out. My grandmother knows nothing of what happened to her cousins and aunts and uncles, and still, to this day, the Armenian genocide is not recognized by Turkey.

It’s happening again. The Azerbaijan and Armenian conflict over Artsakh, an area that Azerbaijan claims is theirs, but is inhabited heavily by Armenians, has been restarted, and the people living there are in serious danger, as Turkey is now lending their military aid to Azerbaijan as well, while the rest of the world is turned the other way.

I know we’re all so fatigued from the shitshow that has been 2020, and how difficult it can be to comprehend yet another tragedy, but if you have a moment, please just educate yourself on what’s happening in Armenia and Artsakh, educate a friend, and take a look at the some of the resources I’ll link below, I would be so grateful. Don’t let history annihilate my people again.

explaining why the conflict has re-started

a help Armenia carrd

donate- the Armenia Fund

i tried to explain what generational trauma is to someone recently and they were like “oh so because something happened historically, you get to have issues about it now?” and no.... that’s not what that is.

when i was in 8th grade, on my class trip to washington dc, we visited the holocaust museum. it’s a wonderful, extensive, informative place, and it’s a beautiful tribute to the victims. as a jewish kid, i knew what the holocaust was. i’d faced antisemetism every day of my life, and will continue to do so. i knew what had happened to my ancestors not too long ago.

but when i stood in that museum. in the recreation of the cattle trains used to move us to the camps. in the recreation of an auschwitz cabin, staring at the map of the camp. when i saw the pile of shoes and jewelry taken from the victims. when i learned how their hair, so very much like mine, was cut for having texture. and how their teeth were pulled for the gold fillings. i had a panic attack.

it was embarrassing, but i was a shitty little 8th grader, and i tried to hide it. but I couldn’t breathe. it was like there was a band around my chest the entire time i was in the museum. i was surrounded by ghosts, by the whispers of emaciated men and trapped women and crying children.

what is generational trauma?

it’s the psychological idea that trauma can be passed down through multiple different ways. trauma can change you significantly, even rewrite neural pathways and physically change how you think. that, paired with the cycle of subconsciously sharing our trauma with our children, as well as mixing with the trauma we learn as we grow, leads to some really rough patches in our relationships with our identites.

this is a really great 4 minute video from the healing foundation about the trauma carried by aboriginal people in Australia. tw for some really heavy topics, but all presented in a relaxed and serious environment.

what do we do?

well, honestly, i don’t know. it’s not like we’re gonna stop sharing our stories with our descendants, nor our histories. we can’t get rid of things related to our identities that give us our own trauma, the bigotry we face unfortunately isn’t going anywhere.

but being aware of your generational trauma is a good step. it’s not just being “sad” or “sensitive” to history. it’s our history still affecting us today. when your indigenous friends are made upset by discussions of colonization, when your black friends feel the weight of a millenia of racism placed on their shoulders, when your gay friends ask you to please stop using that word, when your trans friends see another historical figure deadnamed and misgendered, when your jewish friends can’t talk about the Shoah without their voices breaking.

so why the fuck are you lecturing us?

our murdered ancestors live on in us, in our eyes, our hearts. we are reminded of them constantly, made painfully aware of who we are and how many people hate us.

we were not supposed to survive, and if most of the world had their way, we wouldn’t have. (no, the allies were not heroes of wwii, you turned us away at your borders and continue to let us die from nazis today. if america had had the option, they wouldn’t have given a shit about jewish victims, but that’s a whole other essay i could write)

it’s time to start acknowledging the past, acknowledging your generational trauma and the trauma of those around you. i’m not making up an excuse to “have issues”. at the time i’m writing this, october 2020, i’m 17. i have felt this weight my entire life, and i will continue to shoulder it, as will everyone else.

my point is, maybe we can shoulder that weight together. maybe then it won’t weigh us down as badly. we have solidarity, and we are tough, and resilient, and strong, and beautiful. your generational trauma is something to be aware of, but not ashamed of. we can do this—change the world for the better. we can break the cycle so our descendants don’t feel as we do.

Some interesting info: This is very reminiscent of the Baby X experiments, in which it was discovered that people reacted differently to a baby’s behavior depending on whether or not they believed the baby to be male or female. People were asked to watch a video of a baby reacting to a startling image (a Jack-in-the-box popping up), and describe the baby’s emotional state. When people believed the baby to be female, they described the baby as being scared and upset; when they thought the baby was male, they perceived the baby to be angry. This was very telling, as it showed that literally identical behavior could be construed differently based on the perceived gender of the subject.

drziggystardust

Now imagine a lifetime of gender specific socialization- male anger is par for the course while the same emotion in a woman is personal weakness. Ha oh sorry don’t have to imagine THAT’S REALITY

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anarchosexual

justsomeantifas

call me ignorant but i genuinely don’t understand why sports have to be split up by gender.

@ everyone in the notes talking about physical performance: if that were the case, then sports would be divided by physical performance. that’s a thing you can measure. that’s a thing that varies by individual. a weak man and a strong man would be an unfair fight in boxing/wrestling/MMA, which is why they divide those sports up into weight groups based on physical performance. but they also further segregate them based on gender. chess is segregated by gender for no reason but sexism. if it’s actually about skill and physical ability, then measure those and separate people by those metrics. don’t do some bullshit gender segregation and pretend like men and women are inherently on different levels no matter their individual abilities.

justsomeantifas

💅

Remember that time a teenage girl struck out Babe Ruth? That’s fucking why. Men are afraid of being beaten by women.

amuseoffyre

Remember that time male swimmers were pulled out of training because Kate Ledecky was leaving them ‘broken’ by swimming better than them? Remember how she didn’t even notice, because she was busy actually training?

notanadult

Shooting is a sport that has no reliance on strength and so any allowance for gender variation is irrelevant. The last time there was a mixed competition (1992) a chinese woman named Zhang Shan won it.

It’s often presented as for the benefit of women. After all, they’ll be heartbroken when they‘re hurt or bested by men.

Projection is a hell of a drug.

dick-graysons-left-butt-cheek

GIF by wendywilliamsgifs

this is why they drug test Serena like crazy. the believe no woman should be that good. let alone a black woman. and black women have always been considered “manly” and less feminine.

iampikachuhearmeroar

also can we talk about how surfing is segregated as well? like how the dude who won this years international surfing cup or whatever was given $30,000 worth of prize money, while the woman who won the women’s comp was only awarded like $16,000 of prize money???? or whatever it was. but I know it was either half or less than half of what the man won. like why can’t they get the same prize money and when they’re competing internationally in the same competition? they surely have the same level of skill and talent.

the pay gap in sports between men and women is fucking insane.

torukun1

The pay gaps, not to mention lack of sponsorships for women athletes who don’t look like models is insane. If you weigh over 250 pounds, no one will sponsor you. It’s why most female Olympic-class weightlifters live in poverty/out of their cars.

shipitbabyonemoretime

Reminder that in international (and usually national too) womens athletics anybody with 5m/mol of natural testosterone or higher is disqualified. (See legal case of Dutee Chand vs IAAF.)

Do you or somebody you know have PCOS? You are banned from international womens athletics because you are supposedly in posession of an unreasonable advantage in sports.

Folks disqualified for hyper-androgenism in womens athletics.

Francine Niyonsaba

Caster Semenya

Dutee Chand

Margaret Wambui

And more

Why are those disqualified overwhelmingly black and brown? Because testing is case by case when an athletes performance “raises suspicions”. They overwhelmingly test athletes of colour, for being too fast and not meeting white expectations of femininity.

Racism and intersexism(discrimination against intersex people) in sports is abject evil. Desegregate sports.

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666candy

derrickcodes

Anonymous asked:

How did you learn how to code?? If you’re self taught, then, what websites or books did you use that were helpful? I’m trying to teach myself how to program, but I’m having lots of difficulty and I really want to learn some more. Thanks!!

derrickcodes answered:

Thanks for the question!

First, I want to say there’s no shame in having difficulty learning computer science. When I took my first programming course, I understood nothing. It was at least a year before I thought I had any grasp over anything programming. My pal over at @delightedcrow told this story of his professor explaining just this: “When you start studying a new subject you’ve never been exposed to, it’s like jumping into a pool of new knowledge. When you first jump in after never setting foot into the pool, it’s going to be cold. Very cold. This is where people have trouble continuing because they were shocked by how cold it was and don’t want to jump back in. Instead, you need to take a small step and get comfortable with that before taking another.” With that said, when you learn a concept, try to code something outside of the examples you’re given using it to try to wrap your head around it. I don’t know who said it, but one motto I go by is “Code to learn, don’t learn to code.” I took an intro to Java course and learned a bit, but I got to where I am today because I wanted to see what I was able to do with the language and challenged myself to write larger and more complex programs.

There’s also nothing wrong with asking for help. I know some people think they should be embarrassed because they didn’t understand the material, so they don’t want to ask for help to avoid looking stupid. In reality, we’ve all been that person who struggled, and now that we’re in a better place, we want to help. If you ever have a program you’ve been struggling with and it doesn’t work no matter what you type or how many times you bang your head against your keyboard, ask for help. There are communities of programmers, like Stack Overflow and r/learnprogramming, that will be more than happy to help given that you’ve already scratched your head long enough.

I knew that I liked coding when I started studying computer science, but I didn’t know what I wanted to end up coding. It took me about three years of studying it to figure out what I even like. I don’t know if you’ve given this any thought, and it’s okay if you don’t know yet, but having an idea of what you want to do with coding helps. Here’s a few paths for you to consider:

Do you want to design websites? Learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Do you want to work with databases? Learn SQL (rather MySQL or NoSQL) and PHP
Do you like analyzing data and numbers? Learn Python and R
Do you enjoy statistics? Learn SAS and R
Do you enjoy mathematics? Learn Mathematica and MATLAB
Do you want to want to develop mobile apps? Learn Android (Java) and Swift.
Do you want to work on artificial intelligence? Learn Lisp or Prolog.
Do you want to make games? Learn Unity (C#) and C++
Do you want to make applications for the computer? Learn Java and C#
Do you like working with hardware? Learn Assembly and C.

Like I said, you don’t have to know what you want to do now, and you definitely don’t have to do all of them, but if you have an idea of what you want to do with coding, these are some languages to look into. There’s also no shame in trying one of these paths and figuring out that it’s not for you. While I currently only do two of these paths, I’ve dipped my foot into eight of them. One of my professors told me that most people spend their undergraduate degree in computer science figuring out what they don’t like so they can go to industry or grad school doing what they do like. If you know what you want to do, you can cater your studying more towards that and it would be more enjoyable.

Finally, study with the techniques that help you learn. I personally don’t like reading computer science books, but that’s not how I learn. When I learn something, I need to code an example of it to truly know how it works. Are you a visual learner? Watch a YouTube playlist on the language or topic you want to learn or take an online course on a site like edx. Do you want to follow an interactive tutorial where you learn step-by-step and do examples along the way? Try an online program like codecademy and sololearn. Do you like to test your knowledge on what you’ve learned? Take coding challenges on coderbyte and codechef. Do whatever you think will help you understand.

I hope this helps! Computer science is a hard field to get into, especially for those who are only interested in it for the prestige or money, but with the right amount of drive, passion, and determination, it is one of the most reward fields to get into.

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666candy

25 Black-owned bookstores you can support right now

while i don’t claim to be a “book blogger” by any account (more of a cranky publishing-person blogger most days), i know a lot of people have followed me through my book posts, so i’m taking advantage of that captive audience to boost these bookstores. shop them through their own websites and if you’re local, look into curbside pickup to minimize shipping costs and overhead. okay that’s all thanks bye stay safe.