Background_Boy

this ended exactly the way i expected it to

cats are alayws like could you kiss me on my little head please? [0.2 seconds without response] okay. time for punching to death then

What I like is how it is so nakedly obviously why the cop tracked him (Not stopped him, his lights were not on and he gave no lawful orders) Brock flipped the cop the bird when he saw him harassing a woman. This, naturally, isn't in the report because that's not a legal reason to arrest someone.

a tldr of this situation is that a trans man flipped off a cop as he was driving by, which is an action protected under the first amendment, the cop stalked him, pulled him over, beat him until he had a concussion, then lied about it after the fact despite the fact there was video evidence. the trans man was then charged with three bogus felonies, sexually harassed by at least one other officer, and then put in a women’s holding cell. he has lost his job and will likely have extreme difficulty finding another and the officer — who, again, lied about an event that was caught on camera — has not faced any consequences. this man’s life has, as the article states, been ruined by the heinous, though unsurprising, actions of this cop.

fuck cops. abolish the police. and stop erasing the state sanctioned violence being perpetrated against trans masculine people. this is the third story of police violence against a trans man i’ve read about this year, and it’s only been from other trans men talking about it.

Let's all stop being weird in the notes right now, and instead shut up and put your money where your mouth is. I haven't seen his GoFundMe link posted, but as of July 26 2023, an update has explained he's still in need of assistance with bail+legal fees.

For anyone who would like his information.

oh we cannot let that blue bitch win

I know Dracula is the bad guy of Castlevania and all, but if some zealous Christians showed up at my home and horribly murdered my wife because she did medicine too good I too would probably have gone absolutely fucking feral

He gave them a year and fair warning

⚠ Tip! You can attract someone’s [white ass] with a piece of [cheese]

So play like a noob? got it

You’re joking, but it actually is a popular theory in chess that a complete noob potentially can beat a master by confusing them - as the noob doesn’t know what they’re doing the master is unable to recognize which of valid strategies they’re pursuing and cannot deploy proper counterstrategy.

Chessmasters when their opponent doesn’t make one of the five approved optimal opening moves:

#used to do shit like this when we fenced#for real tho a newbie is way more of an issue than a master because WHAT are you doing???

I’m currently a fencing coach for a high school club and my least disciplined fencer routinely beats kids who have been fencing for 5-6 years because he’s just so unpredictable and messy that his opponents have no idea what to do.

I know what a master is doing, I just may not be faster than them. I know I’m faster than a newbie but hey what the fuck is happening?

I have, on rare occasions, won pokemon battles like this. I have no idea what the meta is, and just slap things together that sound cool. It’s fun when you win by taking someone completely off guard because “Who would run that?!” Idk man, the noob that just kicked your ass. I’m not smart enough for all these mind games that go into serious competitive pokemon, but I do know big laser go pew.

The Newbie Flail™ is the most terrifying attack imaginable.

it's just too fucking much! because of course there's a national shortage on your adhd meds so now you need to figure out how to resolve that except that the pharmacy never picks up their phone and their online portal is absolute dogshit and one time you drove an hour out of your way because they said they had it, but they didn't have it, and they tell you "well we can't transfer the meds, you need to call your doctor to do that" but your doctor only works very specific hours so by the time you call your doctor the meds have scampered off to a different pharmacy and the pharmacy kind of shrugs because you should just psychically know if they got a medicine shipment and all of this is the exact kind of thing that your adhd fucking hates.

so great! your quality of life has fucking dematerialized! within the span of this week, your apartment is a pigsty. you keep having racing thoughts that slam you awake at 2 in the morning, and then the next day you collapse in a brain fog by 3PM. but you need to go to your fucking job anyway so that you can have the insurance to pay for the meds that you're not even getting but you need the meds so you can do your fucking job! you need to make money to pay for the apartment you can barely afford as it is! so good luck. your negative coping mechanisms have started to creep back in. you find yourself loud, annoying, vapid. you fucking hate it.

and here's the thing - these meds are life changing, but not necessarily life saving. it's like going through life without your glasses on - you're struggling, but it probably won't kill you. it's just fucking annoying because the solution exists, and you can't obtain it. and the whole time you are begging the pharmacist to please just fucking fill the prescription all you can think is - holy shit. i'm so fucking lucky that i don't need these to actually survive.

like, are you miserable, sinking quickly into suicidal? sure. but you keep picturing the people who aren't okay-without-it, and it makes you so fucking sad and angry and disgusted with the whole thing that fire-and-static start running up and down your limbs because of course you want to help, of course you'd cut your hair off and hold out your own body, but what are you going to do about it? because fuck! remember the first time they accidentally filed your insurance wrong and said that your meds would be three hundred fucking dollars per-fucking-month? you stood there, shaking, your hand on your credit card, thinking - i have no idea how to make that work. and how you felt like the world was laughing, big and loud and long.

because it didn't matter! they can just say whatever fucking number they want! they could say any number, and you'd pay it, because you have to pay it. they figured out long ago what the landlords are just-now starting to recognize: profiteering in the age of capitalism isn't ever punished. if it's food or housing or medicine, you're going to pay for it, aren't you, darling.

god bless america! does it hurt? does it hurt, are you going to cry about it, in one massive, horrible sob?

and of course this is an incredibly busy week at your job. of course your life is currently falling apart. the life you're fighting so hard to cling to is in a world where it's an obscene luxury to own a fucking dog. you still have outstanding medical debt because you dared to experience hardship. don't mention the student debt. don't mention the price of groceries. don't mention how we have been through at least two life-changing recessions and nobody in the middle class has actually recovered from that yet.

be good, be an adult, handle your shit. call them again. feel like you want to scream, don't scream. feel your brain getting further and further from you. god, how the fuck did you ever live like this?

you tell your mom on the phone today while you drive to the fucking pharmacy again for the third time in the last 24 hours: if they don't have it i'm just hopping the counter and grabbing the first arm i see with my teeth. i'm going full alka seltzer with this one. they're going to need a rabies shot. and you realize you're not even mad you're just fucking desperate; the kind of beg that sounds like a whimper.

home of the free and the brave! it's not that you feel trapped, it's that they've taken you hostage.

it's not a healthcare system anymore. it's just a fucking mugging.

I don't take ADHD meds. I'd probably benefit from them, but I can't have one more med to chase.

There are four medications that are both hard to find in forms I'm not allergic to and pretty essential to my quality of life.

Metformin.... Every pill version I could take was recalled years ago and never came back to market. I went from very well controlled prediabetic to needing insulin to failing insulin to extremely insulin resistant and needing liraglutide. We eventually found a compounded topical version because liraglutide alone wasn't enough.

Liraglutide was an insurance battle. There, but so expensive i couldn't afford it out of pocket. Six months without it damaged me permanently.

There is one form of duloxetine that I've found that does not contain inactive ingredients I'm allergic to. One tiny pharmacy was willing to order it for me.

But the worst is fondaparinux.

See, I need anticoagulants to live. I have three different clotting issues. And I don't process warfarin correctly. The amount of lovenox I would have to take is so high that i was having to do two syringes per dose twice a day and the volume burned like fire. I'm allergic to something in the oral anticoagulants and so fondaparinux is the only med that works consistently for me without horrible side effects and no one carries it normally and every once in a while the pharmacy that orders it can't order it and then I have to find a new one to order it but most pharmacies flat out can't even get it from their wholesaler. I've had four pulmonary embolisms. Going without anticoagulants is terrifying.

Multiple drugs I've taken for ra have been approved for use in covid and that's its own brand of terrifying because it means supply issues happen. Hell, oxycodone supply issues mean filling that is chancy and fraught.

But the ADHD thing is happening specifically by design because of government action, which makes it even more frustrating. (Oxycodone has the same issue. These are not difficult drugs to make and supply except for artificially imposed volume limits that primarily hurt legitimate users.)

The issue is systemic.

Specifically, ADHD meds (Adderall and generic versions of the same thing) are in a shortage- and have been for like a year now- because they are under the jurisdiction of the DEA.

Most medication is regulated by the FDA- the guys in charge of making sure food and drugs are consumed safely.

But Adderall, and anything else considered a scheduled drug (testosterone, for example; which I am also on), is controlled by the people whose job it is to make sure people don't get drugs.

The DEA strictly regulates how much of a medication can be manufactured, and when ADHD diagnoses increased during the pandemic (because telehealth made healthcare as a whole more accessible), manufacturers were not allowed to keep up with demand.

They still aren't. The DEA has blamed just about everything they can for the shortage, from one manufacturer's issues with production now years ago, to the accused "overdiagnosis" of ADHD.

The DEA has also, more recently, set restrictions on how much pharmacies are allowed to dispense. These numbers are not adjusted for local population counts, and they are also not being communicated to the pharmacists, so often pharmacies are running into those limits suddenly and without warning.

Just to say that it's the "war on drugs"; not pharmacies, and not even really manufacturers, causing these problems.

Also, just because I've been dealing with this too: the best way of navigating this issue I've been able to find has been to, in this order:

I doubt most of this is super new to most people, but figuring this out has been a nightmare, and this is how I've been able to get my partner's and my own scrips filled relatively quickly these last few months. Hopefully it saves someone some trouble.

(Also, pick pharmacies that are regularly open when you're available to call. I have spent multiple consecutive hours on the phone. It's worth it.)

AUGH FUCK OH GOD

They did it??? They actually fucking did it???

THIS IS AMAZING

my tummy hurts but at least i have a medical professional (baby cat) accompanying me

hi baby cat here. we hvae to cut you in to ten million pieces with my claws forever

are yhou sure about this doctor

at the request of @fierifreak, here is a chart i originally posted on twitter that inexplicably did numbers (credit to OP of the blank graph in the corner!)

this is genuinely very disturbing

Definitely a contender for funniest peanuts strip

[Image ID: Tweet from Lee "Steeltoes and Sweatpants... (@/ carterForva) on 21 Feb 22 reading: If there is a single Nazi flag at your event, the the guy who brought it doesn't immediately get the shit kicked out of him, you're at a Nazi event. /End ID]

*raises my hand to ask a question* what if we collectively refused to refer to AI as 'AI'? it's not artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence doesn't currently exist, it's just algorithms that use stolen input to reinforce prejudice. what if we protested by using a more accurate name? just spitballing here but what about Automated Biased Output (ABO for short)

I've been informed that in australia, "Abo" is a slur against Aboriginal people. therefore a respectful and clear differentiation must be made:

in summary: a more descriptive, respectful, and practical term for Artificial Intelligence is, quite logically, A/B/O

#since AI is a rapidly emerging business...it would be accurate to say that tech is currently an A/B/O Dynamic industry

Okay I understand the joke and I respect it but I do want you to know that there is in fact a real movement/suggestion to refer to it as, ahem...

Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences. Or SALAMI.