Please do your research and don’t blindly follow trends.

Why does it want access to sensitive info for Product Personalisation?

How is my health data related to the App functionality?

This is a Privacy clusterfuck.

Reblogging because holy shit.

i had three fic ideas.  wrote one.  i still have three fic ideas.  this is not how math is supposed to work.

can this post please back up it’s too close to home

I had five ideas, I wrote two, now I have seven

Listen. They’re called “plot bunnies” for a reason, and it’s not just because they hop around all over your brain demanding attention.

🎶99 fanfic ideas on my blog

99 fanfic ideas~

Take one down, pass it around

137 fanfic ideas on my blog🎶

this post walked into my house and kicked in my ribs

For anyone who ever asked me where ideas come from. They creep in and breed when you’re making something else.

may I offer my contribution

@this-acuteneurosis I feel like this is a mood for you 😂

The number of times I have been laughed to shame because I was gonna write a “short story” and produced at least a novel…

children outside screaming: annoying but ultimately for the greater good. children need Going Outside and Screaming Time for proper emotional development. an auditory burden I am willing to bear

neighbor with his car he made louder on purpose: jail for neighbor. jail for ten thousand years

When I tell you I think the only time I could truly murder someone is when they enlouden their vehicles and then roar past my windows omggggg

But yeah no kids playing is a wholesome sound it just makes me smile and feel better about the world in general

That's a great table design (credit)

The table design is amazing but what’s really cool is how much work the dude sank into making the thing. People who can follow through on a huge project like that are so yum.

if your leftism doesn’t include fighting antisemitism then I’m really not interested in your leftism

I can feel the leftist goyim trying their best not to look at this or think about it. I see you. I see how easily y'all accept antisemitism when it’s against people you don’t like, and it pisses me the fuck off.

How can one be anti-racism, anti-bigotry, even anti-misogyny, but not fight antisemitism?

Still, if Jews are saying it’s happening, I’d better do some research and learn how to spot it better. ❤️

Dragon Age Create-a-thon 2023 Announcement

What is the DA Create-a-Thon?

The Create-a-Thon is an event where DA fandom creators and DA fandom appreciators will be put into teams to try and win the most points for their team! Winning points has two phases:

The winning team will be announced with all members and will get a custom banner for their team (and bragging rights)

What kind of works can be posted?

Any DA fanworks that were created during the creation period and can be posted to Ao3. Crossovers or AUs will be accepted as long as there is at least 1 DA character. Please try to tag works as accurately as possible, so that others can seek out fics they’re interested in during the appreciation period or avoid those that they may not wish to engage with for whatever reason.

Who can participate?

Anyone in the DA fandom who is 18+ and has a discord account, creators or otherwise! Commenting on fics also earns points for teams, so producing something isn’t necessary to participate! We’ll try and keep the teams even between creators and appreciators.

Unfortunately, this event will be 18+ only.

When is it happening?

Sign-ups open: September 11-15, 2023

Team creation: September 26-30, 2023

Creation period: October 1-31, 2023

Appreciation period: November 1-13, 2023

Results tallied: November 13-15, 2023

WHOOOOOOOOO-HOOOO

One t-shirt, two mugs, and a body pillow, please.

chronically ill people will tell you that they’re fine while they’re visibly shaking and sweating and fighting for their life in front of you

because for us, “fine” has come to mean “i’m not actively dying, just wish i was so I could go get it fixed, alas no need for the paramedics sadly”.

you WISH you were eating sweet mulberries from a stranger’s overgrown tree at twilight in a silent neighborhood

why is this getting notes. i was just bragging about my evening it was meant to be like a 2-3 note post with nothing but likes from mutuals

Politely, you did post something quiet and sweet on the yearning website

ok that one’s on me

I've got these two sewing machines, made about 100 years apart. An old treadle machine from around 1920-1930, that I pulled out of the trash on a rainy day, and a new Brother sewing machine from around 2020.

I've always known planned obsolescence was a thing, but I never knew just how insidious it was till I started looking at these two side by side.

I wasn't feeling hopeful at first that I'd actually be able to fix the old one, I found it in the trash at 2 am in a thunderstorm. It was rusty, dusty, soggy, squeaky, missing parts, and 100 years old.

How do you even find specialized parts 100 years later? Well, easily, it turns out. The manufacturers at the time didn't just make parts backwards compatible to be consistent across the years, but also interchangeable across brands! Imagine that today, being able to grab a part from an old iPhone to fix your Android.

Anyway, 6 months into having them both, I can confidently say that my busted up trash machine is far better than my new one, or any consumer-grade sewing machine on the market.

The old machine? Can sew through a pile of leather thicker than my fingers like it's nothing. (it's actually terrifying and I treat it like a power tool - I'll never sew drunk on that thing because I'm genuinely afraid it'd sew through a finger!) At high speeds, it's well balanced and doesn't shake. The parts are all metal, attached by standard flathead screws, designed to be simple and strong, and easily reachable behind large access doors. The tools I need to work on it? A screwdriver and oil. Lost my screwdriver? That's OK, a knife works too.

The new machine's skipping stitches now that the plastic parts are starting to wear out. It's always throwing software errors, and it damn near shakes itself apart at top speed. Look at it's innards - I could barely fit a boriscope camera that's about as thick as spaghetti in there let alone my fingers. Very little is attached with standard screws.

And it's infuriating. I'm an engineer - there's no damn reason to make high-wear parts out of plastic. Or put them in places they can't be reached to replace. There's no reason to make your mechanism so unbalanced it's reaching the point of failure before reaching it's own design speed. (Oh yeah there is, it's corporate greed)

100 years, and your standard home sewing machine has gone from a beast of a machine that can be pulled out of the literal waterlogged trash and repaired - to a machine that eats itself if you sew anything but delicate fast-fashion fabrics that are also designed to fall apart in a few years.

Looking for something modern built to the standard that was set 100 years ago? I'd be looking at industrial machines that are going for thousands of dollars... Used on craigslist. I don't even want to know what they'd cost new.

We have the technology and knowledge to manufacture "old" sewing machines still. Hell, even better, sewing machines with the mechanical design quality of the old ones, but with more modern features. It would be so easy - at a technical level to start building things well again. Hell, it's easier to fabricate something sturdy than engineer something to fail at just the right time. (I have half a mind to see if any of my meche friends with machine shops want to help me fabricate an actually good modern machine lol)

We need to push for right-to-repair laws, and legislation against planned obsolescence. Because it's honestly shocking how corporate greed has downright sabotaged good design. They're selling us utter shit, and expecting us to come back for more every financial quarter? I'm over it.

The WIP Project - critical voice

Hello writerly friends!

I don't know how many of you are still reading this and if any of you joined me in 40k in 50 days. I'm currently on my day ten and... it's not going fast, but it's going. 

The workdays are kicking my butt, but I have 2470 words on the novel, and I had a Friday writing spree in fanfic of about 2000 words. My highest daily wordcount for the novel was 839 words, which — should that tell me something? That I can spit out 2k words for a fanfic scene but not even getting 1k for the novel done in a day? 

I was expecting a slow start, but I feel that by now, I should have gotten to a higher wordcount, at least on my non-work days. Is this an attitude problem? Am I still stuck on the "important novel work, not just fanfic, must be perfect or else" thing?

In the current storybundle for writers (https://storybundle.com/writing, good for another week as of today), is a book by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith about productivity for writers. Two parts of their "Bundle on Productivity" book are blog posts where Dean live-blogged his writing sessions. He points you to his blog (https://deanwesleysmith.com/), so it's not exactly a secret, but I wondered if these diary-like entries were worth a book. Still, it was interesting to skim these posts, where he describes how he manages to write about 1000 words per hour of publishable fiction. 

Dean Wesley Smith is an unapologetic pantser, a discovery writer. He calls it Writing Into The Dark. He starts writing with no plan, no idea what will happen in the story. He goes back mid-writing if he thinks of a great bit of foreshadowing, and then returns to where he left off and keeps writing forward. The three sections in that productivity bundle describe how he wrote a novel in ten, in seven, and in five days. 

I'd be happy with a novel in 50 days, writing one in ten days would be awesome! How does he do it? 

One advice from him is: Don't focus on words. Follow the characters, let them live the story, don't worry about how the words sound. As he says, readers forgive simple language, but they don't forgive boring characters and boring stories. His other advice is to work on silencing the critical voice in our heads:

Quote: 

I think this pretty much hits at least my personal nail on its metaphorical head. My critical voice is trying to protect me from the failure of writing and publishing an original novel. Because it won't be a bestseller, it may not even be good (by whatever arbitrary standard we want to apply)! So, better not even start at it, or at least make it as difficult as possible, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Brains are fucking fucked up, let me tell you. I've been living with this thinking goo for so long now, and it still fucks me up like this! Time to smash that critical voice.

Today I'm aiming for 1000 words. I'll let you know how it goes.

How about you?

--

@quilleth, @theoriginalladya, @kmlaney, @coffeewritesfiction, @mareebrittenford, @lilliebellfanfics, @keyboardandquill, @fontainebleau22, @kinetic-elaboration, @wildswrites, @rhikasa, @inkvulture, @heroofshield, @bad-at-names-and-faces, @sabels-small-sphere, @annaofthenorthernlights, @sarahawke

Fuck Around and Find Out

We have regular doors on either side of revolving doors because 492 people died at the Cocoanut Grove in 1942. We have radar for air traffic control and the Federal Aviation Administration because two planes collided over the Grand Canyon in 1956. Natural gas smells like that because it didn’t before it blew up the New London school in 1937 and killed around 300 people. We have a LOT of fire safety rules because of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. We have stronger cockpit doors because of 9/11 and stronger security for employees because of Pacific Southwest Flight 1771 and lighted aisles on planes because of Air Canada Flight 797.

I mean, that’s just off the top of my head after getting home from working twelve hours overnight. Two hundred and twelve episodes of @disasterarea-podcast, and nearly all of them involved the disaster in question spawning new regulations or rules to prevent the same thing from happening again.

actually i’d like to point out: we have safety regulations because people PROTESTED AND FOUGHT AND STRUCK AND DEMONSTRATED AND RAISED HELL. it took the bereaved families of those who died in the triangle shirtwaist factory years of campaigning for the government to pass regulations about fire and door locks. it took open warfare--the government was sending in troops, dropping bombs-- for miners in appalachia to get basic safety regulations. it takes parent groups and boycots and unions fighting cops in the street. it takes marches on washington. it takes a lot of journalism.

the government does nothing for the silent dead, the humble dead, the polite dead. a dead body is shoveled into the ground and forgotten by the next business quarter.

safety regulations are not written in the blood of silent, disposable victims. they’re written in the blood of those who split their knuckles and screamed their throats raw for a better world.

don’t ever underestimate the value of protest.

the government does nothing for the silent dead, the humble dead, the polite dead. a dead body is shoveled into the ground and forgotten by the next business quarter.

... Don't ever underestimate the power of protest.

this is probably the best take I’ve heard so far on the debate of people being told that they aren’t having enough ‘compassion’ for billionaires making bad decisions and paying the obvious consequences for it

This was basically the only instance we've had in a long time where the actual billionaire paid the ultimate price for their shitty decision, instead of the overworked and underpaid masses they exploited to get where they were.

My GOD how I love it when the thing that has me frothing at the mouth in apoplectic rage is this well articulated. Hot damn I wish I could thank him personally. I’m just gonna play this to anyone clueless enough to tell me that I’m not being a very nice person about this.

You're not gonna believe it but I'm thinking about fucked up kinks again

Same same same been thinking it’s time to get back to Aevrienne’s very fucked up dynamic that Iron Bull’s gonna be hard pressed to fix but he’s up for it.

don't understand anti-aging sentiment I can't wait to be a weird old man.

the older I get the thinner the grip of social convention will be I will only become sillier forever

These hashtags are as vital as the blog they are everythiiiing

oh hey, someone put that thing i was mad about yesterday into words!

I couldn't agree more with OP here.

excellent point by tumblr user zaxal

"Pride was a riot"/"be gay do crime" gays bout to votescold EXTRA hard next year

No but there's something to be said about this weirdly fucking sanitized/mainstream glamorization of radical LGBT history pushed by bougie USAmerican gays that is somehow so fucking toothless. People want the spirit of the first gay liberation orgs but don't want to contend with how historically those groups allied with anti-imperialists, communist parties, and third world liberationists. Anything outside of Shut Up And Vote influencer politics they don't want to bother with. They don't want to bother with the work of building the base for a mass movement, especially if it means working with dirty fucking commies and "tankies" and people whose political program doesn't end with Voting Harder.

There is such an incredible parallel here between the current iteration of “toothless” sanitized glamorization of radical LGBT history and the sputtering, indignant floundering of current evangelical Christians wanting desperately to divorce themselves from the radical, lawless, itinerant traveller ‘miracle worker’ that the Pharisees hated so much. Jesus. I’m talking about Jesus.

And women who simper and bat eyelashes and declare themselves a breed apart from “feminists”, ew, no, I like men, truly, I’m not like those bitter old hags always mad about something as they sashay over to the bank to deposit their paycheque in their own account so they can make their car payment in the car they’re allowed to own and drive and which has a “GET OUT AND VOTE” sticker on it.

Bitch, you owe those bitter, mad hags your ENTIRE quality of life! Gays, you owe those anti-imperialist, commie weirdos your pride in more ways than one! Christians, you owe the rule-breaking, radical, rabble-rousing, troublemaking, anti-capitalism first-ever-socialist named Jesus the Christ your whole entire lives, your knowledge of him, and your respect.

All of us are benefiting from someone who bucked some status quo and caught a ton of shit for it. Maybe instead of trying to pretend those someones weren’t who they were, we should be examining exactly what they were, so we can continue the good work they started.

I got to infodump about Crotical Role to my dad and Beloved so hard that I forgot to eat dinner, and by the time I remembered to have food I was too hyped about critical role to focus lmao

This is a quality that should be treasured in people. Somewhere along the line, we decided this somehow isn’t the “right” way to be, and when we did, we lost a bit of our capacity to be human. Cherish the ones who can still get so excited about this one thing that they’re too wired to eat their supper.

I find the results of this poll very telling. I think maybe a lot of us are looking for real connection and honesty in their interactions with others and, at least in their inside voice, don’t care if it sounds cringe or not.