Living ~400lbr

something about how the disability rights movement got watered down, in people's eyes, from "we demand that buildings are built to physically accommodate us, eg with ramps" to "there's nothing we can do about the world around us, but it would be nice if people were more accepting of seeing people stim"

multiple notes on the post that demonstrate people think accessibility means "normalizing disability" and like, sure i guess that's important, but the capital crawl was not about normalizing disability it was about basic rights to access society

like it's not all about vibes y'all. it's about real tangible things like elevators.

This article is actually about a very serious problem. If you overgenerate electricity it increases the phase frequency of the power grid, and if that goes out of sync with your generators (including solar panels) it can destroy them. In the kind of way where your power grid is fucked for months. It is very very very very bad.

California started a program to make solar panels more affordable by offering very low interest rates for solar panels, to allow people to benefit from their lifetime $/energy cost that's below fossil fuels, without having to worry about the high frontloaded cost. However they did not do this for batteries. And power grid quality batteries with massive energy storage and serious charge-discharge lifetimes, are expensive.

And they did this because while solar panels are cheaper than fossil fuels per kilowatt hour of electricity over their lifetime, solar panels plus batteries are not. And California wanted a supplemented free market solution and didn't really want to think about the part that direct government intervention in the form of taxation and paying for this change would be necessary.

So everyone in California just kept adding solar panels to the grid with no disconnect mechanisms, until eventually it hit a point where at noon, solar panels generated more power than the entire grid needed. With no batteries to store the excess. This is a motherfucking power grid killer. It is a scenario where people get left in the fucking dark for months because of how badly it destroys the powergrid.

So the power grid authorities did the only thing they could do. They called up every industrial plant with heavy duty equipment and ovens they could and paid them to turn it on full blast (because using that equipment costs money in wear and tear even without the electricity cost). And in doing so, avoided disaster.

That's what this article is talking about. They are solar panel researchers criticizing a capitalist adoption strategy and promoting direct government intervention to create renewable energy. However as with most newspapers they don't get to choose the title, the editor picks the most provocative title that will get clicks.

Okay here's another case where I originally reblogged the first part without thinking, and now we have the proper context. Damn

This also highlights a big problem in current power grids.

most annoying trait from what i see as a millenial book girlie culture is "love of books" not as love of reading but as adoration for the physical object. an e-book, a library book or an audiobook don't have the same value because you can't display them forever for others to see. full shelves of unread titles are a symbol of status. annotating your own books is a crime. using old books in art projects like collages is guaranteed to earn you "as a reader this pains me" comments. i love buying a beautiful edition as much as anyone else but man the consumption mentality here is tiresome

like i remember when i was younger i got a little bummed my bookshelf didn't actually reflect what i had read because i read a lot of borrowed books, downloaded books etc. and like who cares? i donated many books that didn't serve me anymore. last time i moved i brought some books with me and realized...i don't need all of these just to make volume, to show other people i read. i kept the ones that bring me joy super visible front and center but not the ones that i barely remembered. what am i trying to prove? who am i trying to prove it to?

"Books... are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development."

- Dorothy L. Sayers, The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Lord Peter Wimsey, #5)

It's OK to let go of books you don't want anymore. Especially books that are still in print or likely to be in local libraries.

This ABSOLUTELY works.

I have used this for many years. Definitely b do it.

This article was super long-winded so I screenshat the important part

the fact we’re responsible for getting doctors to “lower their defenses” in order to literally just do their jobs is ✨INFURIATING✨

Another aspect of this approach is that it implies someone else, who knows you well, has made a health/wellfare observation about you, which means it's less likely for the doctor to think your concern is "it's all in your head" or that you're exaggerating.

But yeah, it's messed up.

I am aware I have died on this hill before but people who really strenuously argue that fanfic isn't "real writing" drive me insane. what do you meeeaaaaannn. besides the fact that any attempt to define "real art" vs "fake art" is inherently reactionary, it just doesn't make any sense. it's Writing. people Write it. what the fuck are you talking about.

"it's totally self-indulgent with no standards for quality and criticism is borderline not allowed"

are you like. aware of the concept of hobbies? if someone regularly posted pictures of their hobbyist knitting projects on their blog, it would be considered rude to drop in with "criticism." that's still a real art form.

"most of it is really bad"

I cannot stress enough how much perceived quality is not a valid metric for determining what is and isn't art

"it's just porn"

I'm going to kill you

"it's full of unchecked misogyny, racism, queerphobia, etc"

I have some really bad news about every artistic medium ever

"you didn't put in the work of making your own world/characters, you just copied someone else's"

tv shows with writers' rooms. ghost writers. franchises where different works are written by different people. adaptations and retellings. sorry guys I guess none of these are real writing anymore.

There is an endemic problem in spinoff novels or cross-media properties like comics, where you'll get a very talented author recruited whose work is generally excellent, and everyone's excited, but then it turns out they don't know how to write fanfiction.

And the result is that the spinoff is really bad. Because the author completely fails to capture the vocal cadence or behavior or motivations of someone else's characters, the narrative tone of the series...they try too hard to the point of making in-universe references feel stilted and unnatural, or do WAY too much exposition about things that shouldn't need to be explained at this level of barrier-of-entry.

The ability to be a chameleon, to figure out and match the "feel" of characters and a world you didn't create, is a learned skill.

— Be the Serpent, by Seanan McGuire

I agree with Quentin in his novella that Toby could do better than Tybalt but given he's a crown prince I assume his sense of 'could do better' is likely status-related, and Tybalt is a king (albeit not of the divided courts) so who do you have in mind here Quentin. Toby has eliminated a large number of the local royalty and they view her as their natural predator. Was he holding out for Toby to marry Nolan

Toby really did raise a generation of kids who think it’s cool to scream at god and also hold enough sway to occasionally make him listen

Can you imagine suing Boeing and coming home to find Boeing's faulty plane parts washed up in your backyard?

@chaoticgoodcatgirl

The hard truth about autism acceptance that a lot of people don't want to hear is that autism acceptance also inherently requires acceptance of people who are just weird.

And yes, I mean Those TM people. Middle schoolers who growl and bark and naruto run in the halls. Thirtysomethings who live with their parents. Furries. Fourteen-year-olds who identify as stargender and use neopronouns. Picky eaters. Adults in fandoms. People who talk weird. People who dress weird.

Because autistic people shouldn't have to disclose a medical diagnosis to you to avoid being mocked and ostracized for stuff that, at absolute worst, is annoying. Ruthlessly deriding people for this stuff then tacking on a "oh, but it's okay if they're autistic" does absolutely nothing to help autistic people! Especially when undiagnosed autistic people exist.

Like it or not, if you want to be an ally to autistic people, you're going to have to take the L and leave eccentric, weird people alone. Even if you don't know them to be autistic. You shouldn't be looking for Acceptable Reasons to be mean to people in the first place. Being respectful should be the default.

This reminds me of that global warming comic, like

this is by far my favorite safety/warning sign btw. they really went off with this one

No cuz I fucking love this sign. It’s not an actual barrier so it’s not like some sort of challenge it simply says “fuck around and you will find out”

Ohohoho I LOVE “fuck around and find out” signs, especially the really dramatic and ominous (but true) ones

(Context for the last one: it’s a WWII era sign posted around the soldiers’ washroom mirror, warning them to never discuss military plans in places where civilians could hear them and report back to the enemy, e.g. in restaurants and pubs in the country. “Loose lips sink ships”.)

I also love these two, which I would place in the category of “You already fucked around, now you’re about to find out.”

Aerated water is fucking scary. It's water that has a fuckton of gas in it, which reduces the buoyancy to the point where you will immediately start to sink if you fall in.

ive been collecting these recently and wanted to add some of my favorites

Official ominous signs