Maybe one day a naked person will once more just be a naked person, as it was for nearly all of human existence, and people will get bored of keeping women’s bodies this paradoxical mix of socially unacceptable and publicly owned.
More than 1 million people have fled Sudan to neighbouring states, as people inside the country are running out of food and dying due to a lack of healthcare after four months of war, the United Nations has said. Fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has devastated the capital Khartoum and sparked ethnically driven attacks in Darfur, threatening to plunge Sudan into a protracted civil war and destabilise the region. “Time is running out for farmers to plant the crops that will feed them and their neighbours. Medical supplies are scarce. The situation is spiralling out of control,” UN agencies said in a joint statement.
Source: theguardian.com
i don’t think people realize how much of modern life we owe to ball bearings everyone say thank you ball bearings
literally what can’t she do
this came across kinda jokey but like genuinely so much of the things we can do today are thanks to ball bearings and i hope whoever invented them got mad pussy and excellent head for the rest of their life
EVERYONE SAY THANK YOU TO PHILIP VAUGHAN AND THE WELSH
i love the pedestrian-to-car staredown when you see them go from a rolling stop to a full stop. like that's what the fuck i thought. vehicularly manslaughter me about it
Me: oh yeah, if you think school photography is hard now, try imagining doing this with film.
The new girl: what’s film?
Me: … film. Like… film that goes in a film camera.
New girl: what’s that mean?
Me: … before cameras were digital.
New girl: how did you do it before digital?
Me:… with film? I haven’t had enough coffee for this conversation
New girl: I need you to show me how to format the usb.
Me: format?
New girl: yeah what do I do?
Me: you… put the usb in. Then you make a new folder on it and rename it with (name, date, location)
New girl: but how do I do that?
Me: … they dont… teach you this anymore, do they?
The lack of computer skills is becoming a problem. Like there was a period of time where the older workers in office jobs had to be brought up to speed on computers, but now a lot of the newer workers have the issue too.
There’s a lot of assumed technical literacy because we had a whole generation brought up on desktop computers, but now it’s one that was brought up on phones, tablets, and chromebooks. Phones are easier to use, but that means the users have never had to work around the daily problems presented by most desktop environments.
But our systems are still set up assuming the kids are “digital natives” who just already know this stuff. So no one teaches them. So a new employee walks into the office… and they just don’t.
30-something here. And this is frightening for a few reasons.
Much of the back-end architecture will soon be more difficult to maintain, as those with the expertise retire or when the one guy volunteering to update a niche corner of some minute software function that holds up ¼ of the computer world dies.
While products are made to be “easier to use” now, which has made them more accessible, they aren’t made to last, contributing to tech pollution / e-waste. Many consumers don’t know how to upgrade or repair their own tech…if they are upgradeable.
Which brings me to my next point.
I bought a new low end laptop recently. Not chrome book, but actual Windows PC laptop. I haven’t had a personal computer for a while and with a lot of expectation to “return to the office” because COVID’s over, right? *heavy eye roll*, I wanted something cheap and portable. I found a deal because a lot of low end laptops are being discounted because school children aren’t remote now. I was actually looking for refurbished but found what I wanted cheaper new, sadly.
Finding one that I knew would run the software I needed or that wouldn’t be bogged down just with Windows? A challenge. You’ve got to know what RAM, HDD vs eMMC vs SSD, cores, age of processors, and all those specs mean.
Finding one that wasn’t Windows in “S mode,” a bullshit mode that locks you into the Windows app / store for ALL software (where they take a cut of each purchase)? Even more challenging.
When I booted it up…I imagine most people just click yes through things because why not, just want to get right to it, right?
The amount of privileges I had to decline because of targeted data collection, for ad preferences and other nefarious reasons; the number of easy-to-miss “no thanks” options to decline enrollment in bloatware; the number of things that wanted me to launch the free trial, where they could automatically enroll me into a monthly PAID subscription and could report failure to add a credit card to pay for it to credit agencies (!); many of these presented as the “recommended” or default option… ASTOUNDING.
And then I still had to go into system settings and turn off additional data tracking that they didn’t even present during set-up, along with bloatware bullshit programs they wanted to always run at start-up. Because I knew where to go and find that stuff. Don’t even get me starting on fucking Cortana.
Technology has gotten bad. Even 10 years ago, it was a couple simple agreements not to pirate, using software at your own risk, etc. and that was it.
Now? Waiving rights, arbitration, hidden terms that could leave you owing money if you don’t uninstall it, data collection to link accounts and literally track every move / your exact location / your usage, attempts to personalize ads through your specific searches, inability to block cookies unless you download a Google app!?, four pop ups for every website, as the default?
It is scary how much tech that was designed to increase productivity and make life easier has become yet another way for corporations to track us, sell to us, and sell their data on us, even potentially incriminating us.
Oh, and heaven forbid you know what you’re doing and try to upgrade or repair your equipment yourself. Warranty voiding? Should be illegal, may be illegal in some areas, but they still tell you it’ll void your warranty. Good luck finding the parts. Using non-OEM parts will void the warranty too…by design.
I did not survive Windows Vista era to deal with this bullshit.
I did not survive
Windows Vista era to
deal with this bullshit.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
Anyone have any resources for technology literacy for beginners?
Yes! @aquadraco20
General basic safety
How to avoid ransomware, malware, hacks, and how to maintain good data privacy.
^ this has intermediate information (as well as beginner info) that I think people who grew up on the internet benefit most from (so it won’t tell you what a phone is, or how to press the power button to turn on a computer). I recommend all sections the personal section under the top drop down (except the one aimed at children).
Same deal as above, with quizzes and additional topics.
^ this one is mostly video and audio which some people might helpful
HTML
W3schools is a well known free resource for coding. I recommend HTML because it gives basic website building capabilities, so you can create a neocities website for example or even edit your Tumblr theme. You can also learn CSS (used with HTML to make prettier websites) and Python (used to make programs).
Touch typing
Touch typing is using the home row on keyboards. It allows people to type faster than pressing individual keys one at a time, like on a smart phone.
This site has lessons, and honestly looks much nicer than the program I learned to use touch typing with.
This site has lessons and practice tests and speed tests to measure progress. In middle school I was taking a practice test about three times a week and a speed test once a week for about fifteen minutes each time, if that helps.
—
These three areas are the main things people were taught in computer literacy courses.
I also recommend checking your local library or other educational resources (like local colleges, your current college/highschool/middle school etc, the college you graduated from). These can have in person instructors which can be super helpful. Feel free to send me any questions and stuff, if I don’t already know I’ll try to find out and share where I found it!
Helpful things I’ve done with my windows computer to make it safer/more efficient:
- Installing Malwarebytes/enabling windows defender
- Creating a backup of my computer on a hard drive
- Setting permissions for apps to start on startup
- Getting a password manager
- Installing a web browser that isn’t chrome
- Changing old passwords into better, more secure passwords- especially websites that have debit card info
I hope this helps :D
so yeah that fire in Lahaina, Maui? That was what indigenous activists were trying to prevent. That is why Land Back movements wants indigenous people to be the stewards of the land that was once theirs. Not kick out white people and settlers. But to prevent shit like that where a bunch of tourists/settlers won't destroy the planet in their ruthless pursuit of productivity and profit. So yeah, think on that.
People are asking how was this white people fault?
Power lines, in Hawaii they are owned by Blackrock and Vanguard, keep catching on fire because they forget to turn off their shitty electricity. So when they eventually topple over, white people forgot to cut the Guinea grass planted by colonizers 200 years to feed cows which changed Lahaina from a a swampland to the fucking tinderbox that it is today.
But hey, grass is grass and no need to mow an invasive species, right colonizers? Oh shit, that global warming that these fucking oil companies spent decades telling us wasn’t real is real and that dried up the land in Maui?
Now motherfuckers are trying to buy land off of the indigenous people in Maui because colonizers just love having part time homes, right?
But yay let’s celebrate the fucking billionaires who own homes in Lahaina because they are donating. Nope, no fucking correlation there right?
Indigenous Hawaiians have been saying how tourism is killing their islands for over a decade yet you fucking assholes keep mentioning how Tourism is the point of Hawaii as if that culture wasn’t just about living instead of living for profit.
They don’t want you there but you fuckheads insist of making it your timeshare goal. So yeah. It’s absolutely settler’s fault that this shit happening.
What I like about this comic is that it doesn’t “trivialize” mental health problems in and of themselves. It’s clear that the koala IS genuinely traumatized by what’s happened. But it does emphasize that the mental health problems are a symptom of some real tangible problem that needs to be dealt with immediately.
a little more information regarding the maui wildfires:
- medical workers on the ground are describing finding hundreds of bodies. the current death toll in the media is, unfortunately, only a fraction of the reality
- hospital workers are describing injuries and trauma as if survivors had come out of a warzone
- thousands are still missing
- an apartment complex for the elderly was lost. not everyone could get out. people were saying goodbye to loved ones over the phone
- people who did get out of lahaina were leaving with ashes covering their faces and nothing but the clothes on their backs. people are losing everything.
hotels are still operating. hotels are still operating. they are not the ones offering shelters or housing or food. even bowling alleys are offering shelter, but hotels have the audacity to build on burial sites but not open their doors to local families who have lost everything.
donate to maui united way, the maui food bank, mutual aid, and maui humane society
Oh
OH!!!
OhOhOHHhhhhhh!!!!!!!11!!eleven11!!!!!
The ✨
Fucking 😻
European Union's 🌈
Digital Service Act 🥲
Forces large social platforms 🥳
To always offer ♥️
a non-algorithmic option 🌟
To EU users 🤟
Fuck
Yeah
EU!!!!
[source]
I see US tech jounalists on Mastodon, once again, charging against the EU for "damaging european users" by forcing companies to deliver "a subpar experience". So let me paste something I wrote over there a few weeks ago:
------
I keep seeing very important US tech journalist here talking about how Threads not launching in the EU is: - somehow shameful and a sign of how "you can't innovate in the EU" - a problem for the EU, which will led us to creative interpretations of the GDPR to finally allow Meta to launch here.
And I think folks from the US tech scene really, really don't understand several things:
1) how incredibly hostile the EU (and a good chunk of the European political parties) are to "big tech". 2) how surprisingly immune to lobbying the EU Parliament appears to be. 3) how actually popular it's that the politicians take a hard stance against macrocorps. Every time the European Commission has gone against big tech most the press and the people have cheered them as our champions against evil.
And I can't even start describing how IMPORTANT for the future could be that people started being able to turn off YouTube algorithmic recommendations. I think YouTube shares with meta, pretty much 50/50, the responsibility for the global resurgence of fascism we have seen in the last decade.
The EU isn't perfect but I celebrate every time they get pissed at big tech firms for data and privacy breaches.
Or having 20000 different charger cables. 10/10 EU in this regard. Be hostile against algorithms targeting consumers.
The native Hawaiian and Aquaman actor wrote on Instagram: "Maui is not the place to have your vacation right now. "Do not travel," he said. "Do not convince yourself that your presence is needed on an island that is suffering this deeply." More than 90 people are confirmed dead in fires that destroyed towns including historic Lahaina. Momoa also shared a video in which he said that the Hawaiian community "needs time to heal, grieve and restore". "That means the less visitors on the island taking up critical resources that have become extremely limited the better," he said. The 44-year-old's comments came as residents of Maui said that they were appalled by the sight of tourists swimming at the beach while residents were still counting the dead.
as a huge lover of birds, 90% of the concern against wind turbines being used for energy is literally just pro fossil fuel propaganda. birds ARE at a risk however there is a lot of strategies even as simple as painting one of the blades that reduces a lot of accidental deaths. additionally renewable energy sources will do more in favor of the environment that would positively impact birds (and all of us). one study found over one million bird deaths from wind turbines. while that is a shockingly high number and we should work to drastically shrink it, at least 1.3 billion birds die to outdoor cats on a yearly basis. it was never about caring about birds
there was a study done in 2015 that shows an even greater possible yearly divide than the 2012 one
just sayin'
This should be taught in school.
It makes me sad to see how common the hate for zoos is in leftist circles. To me, zoos are so symbolic of the determination and optimism in leftist thought that I often use these facilities as an example to keep me going. So when I hear fellow leftists wanting to abolish zoos it makes breaks my spirit a bit. Especially considering how necessary zoos are in the fight against the current environmental crisis.
I am the first to admit that no zoo is perfect. I have worked at a world class, accredited, non-profit zoo and it was FAR from perfect. The institution treated me and the other workers like shit. Burnout, lean staffing, and poor adherence to safety protocols resulted in poorer animal welfare outcomes for the animals. And this is a world class facility. There are many facilities out there that shouldn't exist at all that are hardly better than the menageries of feudal kings.
BUT
Zoos are vital if we want our ecosystems to survive the current mass extinction event.
No other type of institution on earth has saved as many species as zoos. From tiny snails to 1-ton bison, entire species have been returned to the wild thanks to their preservation in zoos.
There are approximately 40 animal species listed as Extinct in the Wild by the IUCN, most of which ONLY exist in zoos and aquariums. Many of these animals are only able to be taken care of because of the decades of animal husbandry science and institutional knowledge built up by our zoos and aquaria by working with other species.
There are many extinctions I cry for, but the ones that hurt the most are the ones happening in front of our eyes. The Javan rhino is all but gone. It's estimated that there would need to be about 100 rhinos for the species to survive genetically intact. There are now less than that, and none in human care. All it would take is a single tsunami or volcanic eruption and the entire population could be wiped out.
But if there were some in human care, if we had acted sooner and established a breeding population based on the centuries of knowledge we have of caring for their closest relative, the Indian rhino, we could have saved them.
So, when I see leftists talking about how all zoos are inherently destructive, I ask you to think ahead. To when polar bears, chimpanzees, or elephants go extinct in their natural homes, don't you want a place where we can save them? Where experienced animal care professionals can foster a population in human care so that one day these creatures can return to their homes? A global system of world class facilities dedicated to the survival of wildlife? So even more creatures don't end up like the Javan rhino; a species we could've saved if we'd had the will and the space to do so? If there had more zoos instead of less?
I'm not asking you to love zoos, I'm just asking that you recognize the practical necessity of their existence in the modern age. We won't survive the coming crises without other species. And they won't survive without us.
op didn’t add a link so here’s a link to his patreon where all of his minis are free to download please support him if you can
I would absolutely download a dragon, and I’ve already shared this with my D&D group. We’re gonna have some adventures! Thank you to everyone who made this possible!
On Saturday I hung out with my 84-year-old ecologist great uncle and he stopped in mid-conversation (abt the return of the whooping crane) and very seriously told me that "you can go one of two ways, as a naturalist"; either you keep sight of the hopeful possibilities, or you don't. I'm one of nature's wretched little pessimists but when an old ecologist literally holds your hands in his and tells you, "don't despair," you have to try, I feel.
I'm immune to a lot of the "hopepunk" narratives about ecology but...
The Karner Blue butterfly was extirpated from Canada the year before I was born. He donated to one of the projects to bring it back for years, and even though the project he was working on fizzled out, I told him about the branch in Toronto, still going strong. They save every lupine seed they can harvest and germinate them carefully so that in 20, 30, 40 years we might have enough habitat to bring the Blues back. He was part of the first wave of that effort.
Fuck!!!! What do you do with that kind of care? You have to at least try to believe that better things are possible!
as a child I wondered why adults were so stupid (doing things out of habit/routine/heuristics rather than reasoning explicitly about what to do based on their goals) and the answer is that adults are unimaginably fucking tired all the time
#that really is it #every time i have to deal with someone who seems totally airheaded i assume they’re operating on too little sleep #and the few times I’ve gotten to check i am correct #forgive others as you would like to be forgiven at 6am on a Thursday after a week of late nights #for we will all be there at some point tags via @gallusrostromegalus
my mom loves to lie and like she always swears she was NEVER homophobic or anything to me as a child “i even have a gay work friend” but a really funny memory resurfaced recently where i asked if i could use birthday money i had to buy a rainbow flag when i was like ??? 7?? because i LOVED rainbows. and she said no that means something Evil and god will hate you . so what did i do. but ask my grandmom for a rainbow sweater for christmas and proceed to only wear that sweater for three years when it got cold because i didnt like the idea that god hated colors and i wanted to challenge him
normal 7 year old with religious trauma: oh no god can hear my thoughts and punish me
me: either you are wrong about god or god is wrong and i will fight him and i will be the one to find out
me at 7: he would not fucking say that
It drives me insane how many people dont realise how often they break the law and that if the full force of it was ever applied life would basically be unliveable. Like between traffic violations, petty workplace theft, account sharing and piracy alongside how common it is to have been in posession of some illegal drug at some point in your life. People still manage to get away with thinking "criminals" are people who commit crimes not just populations that are surveilled enough to be routinely prosecuted