Why are men so disgusting.
Really. What's the point of following me just to show me your naked rat.
Losing my shit over Perseverance’s pet rock.
I want what they have
Nobody better slam my girl Hubble Telescope after the Webb Telescope pics came out, alright? For YEARS she was the baddest bitch around and we owe her nothing but gratitude
my whole fucking dash is this post
Well have you thanked her yet
Thank you, Old Mother Hubble.
Old Mother Hubble
Went to the trouble
To fetch us a view of a star.
Though it might’ve been blurred
If she hadn't sent word
We wouldn't be where we are
Hubble, Cassi, Oppy, Percy, Juno, Curiosity, Spirit, New Horizon, Messenger...
So many good, good, GOOD, explorers we've had and we should remember them all for the wonders they still bring us to this day.
When public services are affordable and convenient, people will always choose those resources. They are not supposed to be a capitalistic profit-seeking initiative, they are developed for the benefit of the people, for a better life, just as government resources should be used. (tweet)
Tl:dr the whole rant below: Americanized public transport, even in metropolis and big cities, SUCKS. Why? Not only expensive but also so center-based that it is literally impossible to get anywhere that isn't downtown. Public transport connectivity should also include connection with peripherial places of living and working.
----
I live on an island that is a metropolis. Most people come to work here but live in suburbs across the River. We have a dozen or so bridges.
If I want to get to the south shore, and go hiking, for exemple, or visit my mom or get to that specialized shop or go to my employer's administration center, I can use the subway. There is one (1) station to get to the first city riiiiiiight on the other side of the bridge. After that? I need to buy a new ticket from that city for a bus that departs twice in the AFTERNOON to the neighbooring towns until I get to the mountain or wherever I need to go.
Yes. Only after 3pm. Why? Because god forbid people would want to go AWAY from the big city at other time than after work, or for their convenience.
If I wanted to go to the North Shore? Well, to get to the other island on the river, easy peasy! The subway has THREE whole stations going there! After that? Need to buy from them a ticket to go around. It's another big city.
But wait, what if I want to go to my actual place of employment which is JUUUUST beyond the river bank and not that neighbooring island? A place of employment, may I add, which is an AIRPORT? There is a train. It leaves TWICE after 3 pm from the eastern end of my city.
It'll get me about 60km away from my workplace. And after that? Well! I better walk!
Why don't I live closer? Well, first of because I work for a ressourcing company so I have no idea if I'll still be working there in five months. I might have to work on the south shore afterward. Also, everyone left the city during the pandemic, so the affordability dropped considerably.
Litterally, there are NO way to get easily to places that are not Downtown. Back before I was appointed a doctor in my area, I used to have one near that current place of employment. Back when I was a car-less student... saw them once and went to crowd hospitals that did not need patients like me who just couldn't get to their PCP adding to their workload.
We have massive traffic problem here. We have 12+ surrounding suburbs with a half a million people commuting toward the island for work in the only available way they got: with their cars crossing over a dozen bridges or so.
Yep. Going on an island... you know, a type of land that cannot EXPAND... so we have traffic problems, parking problems, badly damaged streets, pollution...
Thankfully if you live ON the Island, you can use public transportation... except that you can't exactly cross the neighboorhoods to go from one end of the city to the other, nope! You gotta stop downtown and transfer! I used to work at the OTHER airport (the one on the island) and it was a straight 9km from where I lived going north. Could I get there with a bus or the subway? I do have a station 5 min walk from my appartment.
Nope! Had to ride the subway until a station 10 km away from home, transfer, move north west from my initial position and THEN take a bus... a bus that left the station TWICE an hour from 7am to 9am. Most workers working in the area, including me, had shifts starting at 6am.
So, yep, I own a car... and I HATE IT.
Everytime I tell someone that we NEED more public transport, they tell me no one use them except students and poor people anyway.
Geez! I WONDER WHY. Maybe more people would use them if they had an ACTUAL chance to go where they NEED to go when using them!
Also, if your town has less than 5000 people? Never mind, you'll never see a bus in your life, not even to commute to other towns.
I worked 3 months in Austria. It was a little industrial shop in Nowhere. There were three little towns of less than 100 people each from the little cottage I was renting and the work place. The company I worked for had rented me a car and we used it well, grabbing all the workers that lived on my route on the way until all 9 seats were full (that car was way bigger than I needed it to be otherwise).
During the week-end, it never left the drive way. There was a train station not far from the cottage and I was in Vienna in less than 45 minutes for 5 euros. Going to Saltzburg was a little bit longer but I could get there with only one transfer. Gratz was a straight line from where I lived. In Vienna, all the suburb have well thought of city parking. 3 euros to park for a day and the subway would take you everywhere. Including the airport.
I loved Vienna.
I wish I was living in Vienna.
Not in Car-o-Polis.
Eta Carina, my Beloved 😭
sorry if i’m being a party pooper but because rabies is apparently the new joke on here ??? please remember that rabies has an almost 100% fatality rate after symptoms develop so if you’re bitten or scratched by an animal that you aren’t 100% sure is vaccinated then GO TO A DOCTOR. it’s not a joke. really.
You’re being kind when you say “almost 100% fatality”. What people need to hear is: if you get to develop rabies symptoms, you’re dead. If you get heavy treatment after developping symptoms, you still need a miracle. Like, a real miracle, you should enter some religion if you escape that.
ALSO, I don’t want people feeling confident about petting stray/wild animals because there’s a vaccine available, either. I’ll explain why from my own experience (I’m not a doctor).
I got bitten by a wild tamarin once, on the pulp of my index finger. It drew blood, there are many wild animals in the area (tamarins, possums, bats, foxes) and it isn’t that uncommon to hear about 1 or 2 rabies cases every now and again (a puppy we gave to a friend got it, for instance), so I went to an ambulatory immediately.
Because I was bitten in an ultrasensitive area, I needed fast treatment. But it was also a small area, so the usual thing they do - inject the vaccine in the place - wasn’t a choice. They told me they’d divide the shot in 5 small ones, and inject me all over my body, so the antidote would get to my entire system fast.
Please stop for a moment and think that the disease is so worrysome that they’d rather needle me all over than to give me one shot and wait until it spread through my system.
Then they said that, okay, but there was a catch first. I needed to take an antiallergic shot. “Why?” “Because the virus is devastating, and as the vaccine is made from it, but weakened (like almost every vaccine) it will still create a reaction, and it’s a strong one, and it’s veru common for people to have strong allergic reactions to it.” YOU HAVE TO TAKE AN ANTIALLERGIC SHOT IN ORDER TO TAKE THE VACCINE COZ THE VACCINE COULD POTENTIALLY MAKE YOU REALLY SICK
ALSO IT WASN’T JUST “A LITTLE ANTIALLERGIC SHOT”
IT WAS ONE OF THESE FUCKERS HERE.
It was OBVIOUSLY dripped in my body and not injected because HAHAHAHA. Truth be told I was an adult already and I’m tall so I have a lot of mass but STILL.
So after I had taken the antiallegic and was starting to feel drowsy (as a side effect of it) the doctor came with the 5 shots.
- One in each buttock
- One in each thigh
- One in my left arm
They all stung like a bitch and I usually don’t care about shots.
“Okay so can I go home now?”
“No, we have to keep you under observation for 2h so we’re SURE the vaccine won’t give you any reaction.”
BINCH I WAS GIVEN A BUTTLOAD OF MEDICINE BUT THERE WAS STILL A RISK.
I slept through the two hours and then was liberated to go home. My legs, butt, and left arm hurt all over, like I had been punched there, for a few days. I also had a fever (not feverish, a fever)
BUT DID YOU THINK IT WAS OVER?
I had to take four reinforcement shots in the next month, one a week, so I could be positively be considered immunized. Every time I took a shot, my arm would swell and hurt like it’d been hit, and when night came I’d have a fever. Because that’s how fucking strong the vaccine is, BECAUSE THAT’S HOW VICIOUS THE VIRUS IS.
So yeah. DO NOT PUT YOURSELF IN RISK, GODDAMNIT. Rabies is a rare condition all over, THANK GOD, and 1 confirmed case can be already considered a surge and a reason for mass campaigning, AND FOR A REASON.
If you like messing with stray/wild animals, don’t go picking them up and be extra careful. Or just, like, DON’T - call a vet or an authority that can handle them safely.
I must add that I live in a country with universal healthcare, so I didn’t pay a single penny for my treatment. Is this your reality? If not, ONE MORE REASON TO NOT FUCKING PLAY WITH THIS SHIT.
Rabies is 100% lethal. Period. If you are scratched or bitten by an animal you’re not positive is vaccinated, you need to find treatment NOW. And probably go through all that shit I’ve been through (also if you are immunosupressed? I DON’T KNOW WHAT’D HAPPEN)
Stay safe and don’t be stupid ffs
Guys, I know this isn’t art nor anything like that, but I’ve been hearing about this rabies thing and ???? Look I trust none of you would risk yourselves like this, but maybe you can educate someone through my experience and stuff.
Also rabies does not necessarily cause frothing-at-the-mouth aggression in animals. Docility is also a very common symptom so any wild animal that is ‘friendly’ or ‘likes to be pet’ is suspect. Literally any wild animal is a vector.
Finally, you don’t need to be bitten. All you need is to come into contact with an infected animal’s bodily fluids through a cut that maybe you didn’t notice when you were handling it when it drooled on you.
Never touch a wild animal.
Infection with the rabies virus progresses through three distinct stages.
Prodromal: Stage One. Marked by altered behavioral patterns. “Docility” and “likes to be pet” are very common in the prodromal stage. Usually lasts 1-3 days. An animal in this stage carries virus bodies in its saliva and is infectious.
Excitative: Stage Two. Also called “furious” rabies. This is what everyone thinks rabies is–hyperreacting to stimuli and biting everything. Excessive salivation occurs. Animals in this stage also exhibit hydrophobia or the fear of water; they cannot drink (swallowing causes painful spasms of the throat muscles), and will panic if shown water. Usually lasts 3-4 days before rapidly progressing into the next stage.
Paralytic: Stage Three. Also called “dumb” rabies. As the infection runs its course, the virus starts degrading the nervous system. Limbs begin to fail; animals in this stage will often limp or drag their haunches behind them. If the animal has survived all this way, death will usually come through respiratory arrest: Their diaphragm becomes paralyzed and they stop breathing.
And to add onto the above, saliva isn’t the only infectious fluid. Brain matter is, too. If, somehow, you find yourself in possession of a firearm and faced with a rabid animal, do not go for a head shot. If you do, you will aerosolize the brain matter and effectively create a cloud of infectious material. Breathe it in, and you’ll give yourself an infection.
When I worked in wildlife rehabilitation, I actually did see a rabid animal in person, and it remains one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, because I was literally looking death in the eyes.
A pair of well-intentioned women brought us a raccoon that they thought had been hit by a car. They had found it on the side of the road, dragging its hind legs. They managed–somehow–to get it into a cat carrier and brought it to us.
As they brought it in, I remember how eerily silent it was. Normal raccoons chatter almost constantly. They fidget. They bump around. They purr and mumble and make little grabby-hands at everything. Even when they’re in pain, and especially when they’re stressed. But this one wasn’t moving around inside the carrier, and it wasn’t making a sound.
The clinic director also noticed this, and he asked in a calm but urgent voice for the women to hand the carrier to him. He took it to the exam room and set it on the table while they filled out some forms in the next room. I took a step towards the carrier, to look at our new patient, and without turning around, he told me, “Go to the other side of the room, and stay there.”
He took a small penlight out of the drawer and shone it briefly into the carrier, then sighed. “Bear, if you want to come look at this, you can put on a mask,” he said. “It’s really pretty neat, but I know you’re not vaccinated and I don’t want to take any chances.”
And at that point, I knew exactly what we were dealing with, and I knew that this would be the closest I had ever been to certain death. So I grabbed a respirator from the table and put it on, and held my breath for good measure as I approached the table. The clinic director pointed where I should stand, well back from the carrier door. He shone the light inside again, and I saw two brilliant flashes of emerald green–the most vivid, unnatural eyeshine I had ever seen.
“I don’t know why it does it,” the director murmured, “but it turns their eyes green.”
“What does?” one of the women asked, with uncanny, unintentionally dramatic timing, as she poked her head around the corner.
“Rabies,” the director said. “The raccoon is rabid. Did it bite either of you, or even lick you?” They told us no, said they had even used leather garden gloves when they herded it into the carrier. He told them to throw away the gloves as soon as possible, and steam-clean the upholstery in their car. They asked how they should clean the cat carrier; they wanted it back and couldn’t be convinced otherwise, so he told them to soak it in just barely diluted bleach.
But before we could give them the carrier back, we had to remove the raccoon. The rabid raccoon.
The clinic director readied a syringe with tranquilizers and attached it to the end of a short pole. I don’t remember how it was rigged exactly–whether he had a way to push down the plunger or if the needle would inject with pressure–but all he would have to do was stick the animal to inject it. And so, after sending me and the women back to the other side of the room, he made his fist jab.
He missed the raccoon.
The sound that that animal made on being brushed by the pole can only be described as a roar. It was throaty and ragged and ungodly loud. It was not a sound that a raccoon should ever make. I’m convinced it was a sound that a raccoon physically could not make.
It thrashed inside the carrier, sending it tipping from side to side. Its claws clattered against the walls. It bellowed that throaty, rasping sound again. It was absolutely frenzied, and I was genuinely scared that it would break loose from inside those plastic walls.
Somehow, the clinic director kept his calm, and as the raccoon jolted around inside the cat carrier, he moved in with the syringe again, and this time, he hit it. He emptied the syringe into its body and withdrew the pole.
And then we waited.
We waited for those awful screams, that horrible thrashing, to die down. As we did, the director loaded up another syringe with even more tranquilizer, and as the raccoon dropped off into unconsciousness, he stuck it a second time with the heavier dose. Even then, it growled at him and flailed a paw against the wall.
More waiting, this time to make sure the animal was truly down for the count.
Then, while wearing welder’s gloves, the director opened the door of the carrier and removed the raccoon. She was limp, bedraggled, and utterly emaciated, but she was still alive. We bagged up the cat carrier and gave it to the women again, advising them that now was a good time to leave. They heeded our warning.
I asked if I could come closer to see, and the clinic director pointed where I could stand. I pushed the mask up against my face and tried to breathe as little as possible.
He and his co-director–who I think he was grooming to be his successor, but the clinic actually went under later that year–examined the raccoon together. Donning a pair of nitrile gloves, he reached down and pulled up a handful, a literal fistful, of the raccoon’s skin and released it. It stayed pulled up.
Severe dehydration causes a phenomenon called “skin tenting”. The skin loses its elasticity somewhat, and will be slow to return to its “normal” shape when manipulated. The clinic director estimated that it had been at least four or five days since the raccoon had had anything to eat or drink.
She was already on death’s doorstep, but her rabies infection had driven her exhausted body to scream and lunge and bite.
Because, the scariest thing about rabies (if you ask me) is the way that it alters the behavior of those it infects to increase chances of spreading.
The prodromal stage? Nocturnal animals become diurnal–allowing them to potentially infect most hosts than if they remained nocturnal.
The excitative stage? The infected animal bites at the slightest provocation. Swallowing causes painful spasms, so they drool, coating their bodies in infectious matter. A drink could wash away the virus-charged saliva from their mouth and bodies, so the virus drives them to panic at the sight of water.
(The paralytic stage? By that point, the animal has probably spread its infection to new hosts, so the virus has no need for it any longer.)
Rabies is deadly. Rabies is dangerous. In all of recorded history, one person survived an infection after she became symptomatic, and so far we haven’t been able to replicate that success. The Milwaukee Protocol hasn’t saved anyone else. Just one person. And even then, she still had to struggle to gain back control of her body after all that nerve damage.
Please, please, take rabies seriously.
This has been a warning from your old pal Bear.
I knew how bad it was, but I had never read anything like the raccoon story.
I am not exaggerating when I say that is literally terrifying.
Y'all please read this. That is absolutely hideous. That’s literally like something from a horror movie.
Do not fuck around with wildlife. Or weird strays.
TFW Rabies education comes across your dash because some fuck up calls themselves Rabiosexual.
Rebloggin’ for that raccoon. o.o The original post I can pretty much guarantee is a troll, but it’s useful to know just why rabies is such serious shit.
Education right here
Extra reminder: If you see any animal other than a dog who’s been attacked by a porcupine? It’s rabid.
Dogs are dumb, friendly fucks who will investigate anything; everything else in the animal kingdom knows better than to mess with a porcupine, unless their brain is being ravaged by something beyond their control.
If you see a non-dog animal that has porcupine quills sticking out of it? Don’t try to help it yourself. Call animal control.
@talesfromtreatment @is-the-cat-video-cute tagging you to spread the word? Apparently people have forgotten that rabies is a brain disease, terrifying, is fatal if not treated immediately, the treatment is horrid, and the treatment is very expensive
Also I heard that in the USA, human rabies pre-exposure vaccines are not widely available and cost something like $900
Get your pets rabies vaccine every year, folks. Aside from everything else - and that’s a lot of everything - the test for rabies involves the brain, so the animal will be killed first.
And that is a kind end. The videos of rabies seizures are nightmarish
This is also why you’re not supposed to sleep outside without cover (ie a CLOSED tent) if there are swooping bats in your area. Apparently it can be very hard to realize you’ve been bitten by a bat (vs a bug, I guess it’s very small). Some students from my university were on a trip where they came into contact with bats, taking lots of selfies holding them etc, in the area they were supposed to be sleeping and the professor lost it when they saw some of the pictures. The students were housed elsewhere and the university had everyone vaccinated at the school’s expense- the pre-exposure vax may be expensive, but the number of shots you get post-exposure can vary (as demonstrated above) and it was ASTRONOMICAL.
When I looking for places to move to when I can finally leave the states, I looking to laws and procedures to bring my cat with. Any place that had eradicated rabies, intense policies and quarantines for any animal entering the country, unless you were coming from a different place that had also eradicated it. Some of would put your animal down if they were symptomatic at all. I remember thinking “what can’t rabies just treated?” No it can’t be, putting your pet down is the humane option if there symptomatic.
[image: a sixty-milliliter syringe, with human hand for scale. the syringe barrel is likely around five inches long and likely has an inside diameter of an inch or more.]
When I talk to my students about Louis Pasteur and the development of vaccines, I *have* to talk about rabies.
Do you know why “dog catcher” was such a serious occupation? Because in the late 1800s rabies ran rampant in urban street dogs. Because people who got bitten by street dogs… had probably just gotten a death sentence.
As a child, Louis Pasteur watched a man from his hometown die slowly, painfully, and unstoppably from rabies from a rabid wolf bite and it stuck with him so hard that when he grew up he put his own life on the line studying and working with rabid animals to develop a treatment. (Louis Pasteur’s wife, Marie Pasteur, was also a talented, passionate scientist who worked uncredited by his side. Many of their daughters also took up research.)
When Louis Pasteur did his first human test of his rabies vaccine, it was because a mother came to him desperate. Her 8 year old son had been bitten 14 times by a street dog. Doctors were certain he was going to die. She’d heard what Pasteur was working on and begged him to try to save her son.
He tried.
It worked.
This made national news. This made GLOBAL news.
And in the small Russian town of Beloi, locals read about this miracle cure. Their town had been attacked by a rabid wolf and twenty two people had been bitten. They knew these people were going to die. So the bitten people set off walking, carrying the most injured. They walked for weeks to get to France, where Pasteur was based.
When they arrived, the only French word they knew was “Pasteur.” Their cases were dangerously far along, possibly too far. Pasteur began treatment anyway, pushing with the most aggressive dosages he dared.
This also caught global attention. The world waited on tenterhooks.
Pasteur’s vaccine saved 19 out of 22.
The world was awed.
And when those Russian villagers returned home, to their families, it would have been like seeing the dead return.
Vaccinations changed our world.
Rabies is such a terrifying and serious threat that it has shaped our cultures for centuries. The rabies vaccine is quite possibly the most important human invention since agriculture.
Of lesser importance, read Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus by Murphy & Wasik.
Reblogging because rabies is bloody terrifying.
Also reblogging to remember Louis Pasteur, the nineteen lives he saved then, and the many others since.
cannot stress enough the importance of having a bucket in your house. a big plastic bucket. helps with housework. helps with morale. get yourself a bucket today
I am afraid to say this is a post that would have done numbers in like 2013 for other reasons
Funny how that works
I am so pleased at how many notes are some version of “I don’t fear the science, I fear the corporations who control it” because that is EXACTLY the attitude you should have. GMOs can save us. Monsanto will kill us.
what people fear about GMO- ‘theyre gonna make frankencarrots that crave human flesh and cause diarrhea ’ what GMO actually is- ‘we made rice crop that is both drought resistant and flood resistant which will prevent about 20% of major famine disasters, also it now makes vitamin A because vitamin A deficiency in poverty stricken areas is a major killer of kids as most vitamin A rich foods dont grow there’ what people SHOULD be upset about- ‘i made all crops sterile so all farmers have to buy the seed from me in perpetuity and i will sue anyone who tries to go back to crops that produce their own seed’
Leave GMO alone! It's time to be properly afraid of software science, artificial intelligence and the unreasonable push the tech field is making toward interconnectivity.
Have GMO in your fridge, NOT Wifi
Someone posted something similar on facebook and, you know what, I think I should offer the same:
In Canada, you can get a poutine in every province, if you so choose. Quebec has more than fifty restaurants where you can get some! Not everyone wants to order poutine, and that’s totally fine. It’s your choice.
In the US, some states have restaurants with poutine on the menu. Lots don’t. And after last week, fewer will.
If you find yourself in need of a poutine, but live in a state that restricts access to poutine, maybe you find yourself considering a trip to Canada. I won’t ask what size poutine you want or why you haven’t considered other food options. That’s your choice. That is ONLY YOUR CHOICE. So if you find yourself in our neck of the woods, having been able to order a poutine, I’m so down to help take you to get your poutine, wait with you while you eat, and make sure you have a comfy place to rest, post-poutine.
Poutine can save lives, and I wish that all of you beautiful sisters, NBeautifuls and brave trans-brothers know you are seen and that your safety, your health and your choice are valuable and precious.
So if you need poutine in Quebec or if you know someone who needs poutine in Quebec. Or if you need a ear to talk about your need for a poutine... please come forward.
Please Be as down feather
Be as the goose feather of old pillows
I would like
To be something else than a beast of burden
Please make yourself light
I cannot wslk anymore
I carried you to life
I carried you as a child
By God how heavy you were
Made full from love
I carried you once more
At the time of your death
I carried flowers for you
I broke my heart for you
When you were playing war
I was guarding our home
I used all my prayers
The bars of your prison
When you died under bombs
I cried searching for you
Now I am as a tomb
All misery inside
She's only me, She's her or I
The one who speak or the quiet one
The one who cries or laughs
She's Jeanne d'Arc or Margot
Daughter of waves or daughter of streams
And it's my heart or else it's theirs
And she's a sister or a stranger
The one who never came
The one who came too late
Daughter of dreams or daughter of chance
And she's my mother
Or else she's yours
A Witch like any other
You must be like the stream
Like the clear pond water
That reflect and wait
Please, look at me, I am real
I beg of you, do not invente me
You already did it so many times
You loved me servile
Wanted me ignorant
When I was strong, you fought me
When I was weak, you mocked me
You loved me as a whore
And dressed in satin
You sculpted statues of me
And I kept quiet
When I was too old or too ugly
You threw me away
You would not help me
Once I stopped serving you
When I was beauty and submitted
You loved me on your knees
Now I stand as a church
Standing on a pile of guilt
She's only me, she's her or I
The one who loves or loves not
The one who rules or fight
She's Joséphine or la Dupont
Daughter of pearl or daughter of cotton
And it's my heart or it's hers
The one standing on the quays
The one who guards the dead
The one who dance and dies from it
Daughter of tar or daughter of flowers
And she's my mother or she's yours
A witch like any other
Please, be as I have
As I have dreamt for so long
Free and strong as the wind
Look I am free too
Teach me, be not afraid,
I already know all of you
J'étais celle qui attend
I was the one who waits
But I can walk forward
I was the log and the fire
But I could be the blaze as well
I was mother goddess
But I was only dust
I was the ground under your steps
But I did not know it
Now the earth split
The volcanoes can take no more
The ground opened
To unknown riches
The sea turns
Into unexpected violence
Now I am a wave
You will not drown
She's only me, she's her or I
She's the matron or the child
She's the one who surrenders or keeps fighting
She's Gabrielle or Eve
Daughter of love or daughter of war
And it's my heart or it is hers
The one living the spring of her life
The one who no one waits for
And she's the ugly or the beauty
Daughter of fog or daughter of clear skies
And she's my mother, or she is yours
A witch like any other
Please make yourself light
I can not walk anymore
I'm so happy that sometimes you find original works on Ao3 and it's so much better than anything you've ever read that was ever published.
You guys are so amazing!
go girl give us nothing
If you’re buying Apple shit in the 2020s you totally deserve the ripoff that you get
The fucking option that includes an Ethernet port just puts it on the external power supply, like it’s a fucking MacBook.
People keep saying that this is how computer adaptability works and comparing it to the decrease in the lack of CD-ROM drives and Floppy Disk readers.
But this is completely different! And do you want to know why? Because, previous changes were consumer led. They came AFTER the technology had run its course, had viable alternatives, and didn’t force a majority of customers to adapt for profit. Also, Apple is lying. This isn’t innovation, it’s a purposeful manipulation of the market that makes physical ownership of content more difficult.
The Floppy Disk wasn’t just abandoned. It was replaced by CD-ROM in the 90s as a more portable & less expensive alternative. And even then, CDs had existed for more than a decade before computer manufacturers made the permanent switch in 2003. And despite the switch, the production of the floppy disks themselves continued until 2011. By the time floppy disks truly faded from production, most ppl didn’t even own one. And when CD-ROM became “obsolete,” they weren’t ripped from the market and even today it’s fairly easy to find readers that are cheap and/or included with desktops or laptops.
But here’s the thing? CD’s aren’t obsolete. Neither are DVDs, USB, and Ethernet and SDs. Not really. What is there to replace them? You could say cloud, streaming, etc. But those aren’t actually replacements, they are just different forms of consuming materials. And a majority of consumers will be inconvenienced without those things. Like how would you even connect a wired mechanical keyboard? That’s not adaptation, it’s inconveniencing consumers until they get used to it.
But it’s more than inconvenience. What all of these exclusions do is get rid of physical data. It slowly ostracizes consumers from the very concept of physical data and that is incredibly dangerous. All softwares, ad-ons, recordings, and medias being relegated to downloadable accessibility makes these things harder to pirate or share. It also encourages monopolies as it makes smaller, independent production and sharing much more difficult. It also makes the distribution of softwares tied to research & employment more easily controlled by corporations rather than people. And most of all, it takes away consumer control of the things that they use.
Like even PlayStation did this with the PS5? Do you really think not having a physical drive is an innovation? With physical games you can reuse, share, and save. I can play Spider-Man, give to my cousin, and then let any friend borrow it. And unless I bought the physical game online, neither google or Amazon can add that to their algorithmic perception of me. But without that…you have content strictly defined on individual basis and algorithms.
It’s just that all of the growing exclusions aren’t adapting. They are willful manipulations for the sake of changing how large scale consumers ingage with technology and the internet.
The headphone jack was not obsolete. It was purposefully left out to sway the market towards $100 Bluetooth. Physical gaming disk drives aren’t growing obsolete. They are being purposefully phased out so that the consumer begins to rely on individual downloads and algorithm rather than sharing and saving. And USB/Ethernet/SD/HDMI are not obsolete either. They are just being ignored so as to get consumers to change their perception of tech and accessibility. As if having a computer that’s only compatible with apple tech that’s less than 5 years old is reasonable. As if any use of physical content is a paid luxury rather than the standard
No wired internet makes it practically useless for video conferencing, online gaming, and half a dozen other things. This is just a cheap hunk of plastic that you could probably snap in half with your hands, but they put a sticker on it that looks like a fruit so now they can sell it for $1700. Give me a fucking break
To be fair... and I'm saying this as someone who said bye to Mac more than a decade ago when I got ripped off by a battery with a 5 months life expectancy that was somehow never part of the warranty... y'all are looking at ONE side of the machine.
There are USB-c sockets on the back of it and HDMI is not that useful when your computer is your monitor. There is, however, something deeply problematic at the idea that "if this product doesn't have this super basic thing, you can buy something else for it"... like ethernet cable. I'm sorry, but that's like buying a 2022 car and the radio is an extra option that comes with a bunch of useless add-on...
This being said; Mac has been overrated for 20years. And I ain't saying there are better alternatives necessarily... just that it is NOT as much of a holy grail as what some Mac enthusiasts seem to believe it is and y'all can use some critical thinking about your choices as consumers.
