love reading public comments on water treatment infrastructure from the 1920’s. these guys are debating whether decreasing the rate of death by typhoid is worth having to build a sewage treatment plant. everything is the same forever

another fun thing is when towns that are downstream of really big cities are like hey so here is a fun concept. please make our dipshit neighbors treat their water. because ALL OF THEIR POLLUTION MOVES DOWNSTREAM. and the cities go :/ um we tested our water and it's literally fine.

and the other towns must again reiterate that it doesn't matter if the Upstream Drinking Water is Fine. Because the Wastewater is what flows DOWNSTREAM

update from the 1920's. an argument was made (repeatedly) that if everyone would simply get vaccinated against typhoid fever and boil all of their water before using it, then they didn't NEED a sewage treatment facility, and building wastewater treatment infrastructure would be a waste of tax money. i wonder why this sounds so familiar.

i've been thinking about hobie spiderverse since i came out of the movie theater, about how on a superficial level he acts like every other stereotypically alt character, stealing and instigating and bantering and being chaotic and rebellious and looking Cool™ but on a second look it's so so clear that every single thing he does is motivated by kindness and compassion towards his friends in general and miles in particular, and that's so viscerally truly punk of him

the already famous palm suggestion that makes miles break out of miguel's containment thing. miles initially reads this as condescending but hobie's genuinely trying to help

already he's looking out for miles by trying to keep him away from hq, a place where he knows miles isn't welcome and might be in danger

now, they get to hq and he immediately starts lifting stuff to homebrew a watch for miles, a guy he's known for five minutes (bc you can't convince me he didn't already have a bunch prepped for gwen and the other spider-people he trusts). he even lampshades it with the line above.

he's questioned miles' motives to join the spider society and he knows they're the same as his own: it's literally just to get a watch, to have a means to travel dimentions, to see his friends, to build community. he's already made the decision to grant that ability to miles without subjugating him to the oppressive restrictions and requirements of the spider society. at this point we know he's strongly ideologically opposed to the society and he later in this scene admits he's only there to look out for gwen, just like miles

this one makes me insane. it's a "are you safe at home in your dimension? do you have one? do you need a place to stay?" bc we know he's given one to gwen, who's not safe and does not have nice parents and has been crashing in hobie's dimension for the previous months

and then he tries again to warn miles off the spider society

and when push comes to shove and all the other spider-people are set on stopping miles from going home and changing his timeline he's the only one in miles' corner

btw notice how the palms thing is the first and last thing he says to miles in this film?

anyway. he was in this movie for like 15 minutes tops, showed up exclusively to hype up his friends and protect them by whatever means necessary, adoption papers and illegal interdimensional tech included, and he looked that cool the whole time while doing it. most character ever.

I say this with genuine love: I love this rash of small time internet creators starting the most unlistenable tabletop roleplaying podcasts you've ever heard. It feels like a companion to how every group of 20somethings in the 1990s used to have a shitty garage band. We need more of that shit.

One can only spend so long watching the big name actual-plays studiously pretend that they're not workshopping the hell out of their character concepts and major plot points and that the professional voice actor GM's clever monologues aren't 100% rehearsed before it starts to feel strangely refreshing to listen to a group try to wring a coherent narrative out of a group of player characters who barely occupy the same genre and a pre-written scenario that the GM is clearly reading for the first time as they're running it.

twilight princess funniest zelda game ever made

one of the reoccurring minor plots is that a 3 year old with the mental capacity of an adult is trying to abolish capitalism in the big city. there's a yeti couple living in an abandoned mansion and the guy yeti is like 10 times the size of and more visibly monstrous than the girl yet they made him a malewife. you can collect insects for a little girl that is insane about them and gives you strange and off-putting dialogue about each bug everytime you give her one and practically threatens you if you try to leave her home without giving her bugs she doesn't have yet. one of the modes of transportation in this game is being shot out of a giant canon by a depressed clown and landing on your feet with no injuries. there's a spaghetti western style minigame where the objective is to talk to 20 different cats. a chicken attempts to flirt with link. they made tingle into a sexyman caricature.

i completely forgot about ooccoo while making this post. this fucking thing:

and, of course, her son too

Every time someone says that Twilight Princess is too grimdark and serious, I want to point them to this post. It’s a very silly game.

How Matt Walsh lied to get good people participate in his transphobic propaganda movie.

Nandini Jammi explains how Matt Walsh and his crew cheated and lied to get trans people to take part in his transphobic "What is a woman" movie.

Jammi tells the story about interviewees who, when they found out that the movie was made by the reactionary Daily Wire, were ignored when they asked for their footage to be removed.

Nandini Jammi is an American activist and brand safety consultant.

See also:

She is….flattened

back at work

late summer / early fall thoughts

It’s never a good time for any app to replicate Twitter but I find it especially mind-boggling that Tumblr and fucking Discord are backpedalling on all of their unique and good features in order to become a clone of a website that is actively losing money and most of their userbase.

Discord is especially egregious considering that it’s NOT EVEN A FUCKING SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITE. IT’S A GODDAMN MESSAGING APP. It’d be like if whatsapp decided to recommend other family group chats for you via an algorithm

sometimes I randomly think about the time a girl posted in this girls only Facebook group I’m in telling everyone how she broke up with her boyfriend and he lied saying that he lost the spare key she gave him, only to then break into her apartment when she wasn’t home and steal the cat they’d adopted while they were together, but then he denied having done this and she didn’t really have proof that he took the cat since he wouldn’t let her come into his place and look for it. And then another girl saw this post and knew her ex-boyfriend, and she was like “girl. I used to hook up with your mans back in xxxx and I still have his number. If you want, I’ll hit him up and get him to invite me back to his place and see if your cat’s there.” And the OP was like “bet.”

So this woman hit up homie dog, asked him out for drinks, went home with him, slept with him, and then woke up in the middle of the night and TOOK THE CAT. Like she had only said that she would confirm if the cat was there but then she took it upon herself to steal this woman’s cat back. Like she full on Trojan horsed this man and then hit up homegirl like “I got the goods. Where you wanna meet.” And then the two of them posted a photo of them together with the cat to the group.

And I just think women supporting women is so beautiful.

replayed awakening. need a minute to think abt this.

The way I've already seen uncountable "Netflix is hiring!" Ads. They're really just gonna hire scabs and pretend the WGA strike isn't happening....

This is a reminder to anyone who wants to go into screenwriting. This is not an opportunity to get your foot in the door. Do not take any writing jobs during the strike. This includes freelance or “script editing” jobs.

You will be a scab. Scabs are barred from union membership. By crossing the picket line to get your foot in the door you’ll be burning one of the most important bridges in your life. You will actively be harming your future job prospects.

This strike will end one day. Those writers who are out picketing will reenter the writers room and start producing work with the legal and financial protections and guarantees they’re fighting for, and you will not be among their ranks. You will be a scab. A traitor.

A lack of union membership will harm your prospects job wise. Do not scab. Knowledge of your scabbing, traitorous ways will cost you your ability to make friends in the industry. Do not scab. Support the WGA as they fight for your rights. Do. Not. Scab.

For reference: colors produced using dyes available in the Middle Ages. [source]

man this is like the worst year for tech and websites

discord is forcing a username change that no one wants, twitch nearly banned sponsored streams, imgur is banning NSFW and removing old pics, reddit is restricting their API usage and killing off all mobile apps, apple introducing some shitty overpriced AR headset, the amount of fuckups twitter is doing i cant even count on my own two hands its all becoming too much i hate technology i hate you silicon valley

my kitten says hello

WHAT

WAS

THAT

SOUND

a quick pavitr prabhakar, warmup up for a larger piece hehe

i swear to god i regret reblogging that estrolabs post because absolutely no one is focusing on the actual issue, which is that it's a phishing site very clearly run by malicious people and giving them any information on yourself could fuck you over big time

their ashwaganda "estrogen replacement" would be useless at best and extremely dangerous at worst, if it actually existed. however the products on that site almost certainly do not fucking exist and never have, and they have zero intention of actually producing them. the listings for the "supplements" aren't on the site anymore.

when scams like this pop up suddenly, they're not legitimate to even the slightest degree. there was never a real product, they were trying to get your money or your card and contact information either to doxx you, harass you, or literally steal from you. it's a PHISHING scheme, not a "making a shitty product to Literally Kill People" scheme. one of these things is far cheaper and far easier for a layperson to do.

while the information on the function of ashwaganda was definitely useful generally, it was/is not the most present danger of this estrolabs/queerquirk situation and people need to be aware of the actual threat these kinds of sites and situations pose.

as i was writing this estrolabs has been taken down, but queerquirk is still up and still advertising it's fake products and has a contact us page. do not give them your contact information, even to send hate. it is not worth getting phished to epicly own the dumbass behind this scheme. report the site and move on.

starting my lifelong collection of pictures of cats in ukrainian folk clothing now.