genuinely wheezing laughing at this description of dicken’s awful pet with lead poisoning
important thing i forgot to mention: i looked this up bc adam read a thing about how dicken’s pet was an inspiration for poe’s “the raven” and we were like “well thats not true” but now that ive looked it up, i believe it
When you look up gender affirming surgery it says ‘a broad range of procedures that help transgender and non-binary people transition to their gender identity’.
not to enforce gender roles but a computer should NOT fucking have apps okay. if I wanted an app I’d go on my phone my laptop is for Programs. I mean this.
bringing the ancient meme back
really glad to see hate for this concept.
count me among the haters. i’ve been a hater since i first encountered this conflation of many different well-defined concepts into one ill-defined one
it’s part of the general trend of hiding the inner workings of computers from the user, which is something i hate since it tends to promote computer illiteracy which tends to promote incompetence and dysfunction in society as a whole
Me when I definitely understand state vs federal laws
are they forgetting that Republicans want to kill all trans ppl
They’re angrier at the Democrats for not waving their magic wands and stopping them.
So this idiot not knowing about federalism aside, Joe Biden was, sincerely, the most pro-trans world leader we’ve ever seen, and people refuse to admit that either out of pure willful ignorance, or due to their pathological need to lie about Democrats. It’s one of the many reasons why these people should never be listened to or given any kind of platform anywhere near Democrats ever again. Moreover, basically no one but Democrats appreciated just how pro-trans Biden-Harris were, and we won’t get a presidential administration like that again at least for 4 years. But don’t worry, guys! While Republicans terrorize trans people, we can rely on leftists to keep lying about Democrats ❤
An “I can see when people will die displayed above their heads” story but it is not the time of their death. It’s the order.
Someone new has entered the party, because the gauzy 27 clinging to the tip of Salmon Man’s cowlick has ticked up to 28. Salmon Man smooths his hair down and I wonder if he noticed me staring. Unlikely. He’s too many cranberry mixers in and too deep into his dogecoin pitch to notice what I’m doing. I nod along. I’m happy for him, maybe. Or sad for whoever walked in. I’m not sure Salmon Man deserves the 28. He pets his salmon-pink hair down, and like a magician’s sleight of hand, it reappears 29 as his palm passes through. Another new person has joined the room, not so lucky as Salmon Man with his many years ahead of him to peddle crypto scams.
It’s hard. I keep my smile on my face but it’s hard while Jon dips Cassy into a low kiss and the crowd erupts in cheers. Their numbers cross in the motion – the 15 above Cassy’s veil and the 58 over his head. I’m glad Cassy made the hard decision to pass me over as Maid of Honor. It was either me or her older sister Jess who’d been estranged from her family for years before her diagnosis, which came at the end of June and, for Jess, made some things more important than family squabbles. Jess delivers her speech through happy tears to a reception of 114 guests, and I watch the 2 above her head the entire time.
Cassy has tipped up to 17, because there are more people at the reception than at the ceremony. 17 out of 116 attendants. And the newly emblazoned 61 above Jon sends cold ripples through my veins. He’d yelled at her in the bridal suite just an hour before. He wasn’t allowed in there. But Cassy had messed up seating Jon’s cousins, and he’d grabbed her arm with the accusation. I’d pulled him off and in that bridal suite of 10 people, tears in her mascara, Cassy had worn the 1.
I wonder cold thoughts now. Jon and Cassy kiss.
On my mom’s front porch, the egg timer goes off. She hops to her feet, and Jackson does a little stretch-and-roll while Winston scrabbles up on puppy-feet eager to follow. Mom slides the screen door open and shut, and then open again with a tray of biscuits in hand. I take one, light touches against its radiating heat.
“So, you know I’m going to ask.” “Mom–” There’s a 1 above her head. “Is there anyone–” “No, Mom.” I never factor in. I can’t see my own number. If I’m alone with someone, they’re the 1, and I’m at ease. “Do you remember Donny from high school?” “Donny who got in trouble for huffing glue?” “Donny was baseball captain–” “And he huffed glue–” “And he’s very nice. Still in town. Works at Dave’s Meats.”
I stroke Jackson’s gray fur. He’s warm in the sunlight, and very sweet right now after being an absolute hellion little shit for me getting him in his carrier and driving with him to Mom’s place.
“You really don’t want to meet a nice man…?” Mom asks. “…Or woman? It could–you know–if that’s–”
“No–thank you that’s nice, Mom–but I’m very happy with Jackson being the only man of the house.” Jackson rolls over and shows his bear-trap belly. He has no number. Neither does Winston, with his big puppy paws pressed against Mom’s knee, huffing for biscuit.
There’s still a chair out here for Dad, 20 years out of date. Jackson is happy in it now. But I remember how Dad looked in this chair. His 1 to Mom’s 2. His 1 that followed him. In church. In movie theaters. In grocery stores. At seven years old I didn’t know what the numbers meant. Just that Mom’s got real big in big stores. And Dad’s never would.
I don’t want to meet Donny. I don’t want to fall in love with anyone who might wear the 1 at the grocery story.
Mom shuffles her toes. She takes a bite of her biscuit and tears off a little chunk to throw to Winston. “If you don’t want a man… if you did still want kids, well–” “Mom–” “I’m home all day. I’d babysit all the time. Winston loves kids.” “It’s just not right for me.” “I know you said that. But you might change your mind.”
I won’t, though. Because I can manage like this. I can go to restaurants with Lindsey and Doug, who say treatment is going so very well, and ignore the 4 above his head the whole time. I can visit Bethanne for Thanksgiving and be so very normal when her number is lower than her grandmother’s.
But I haven’t figured out how to be normal when a family boards the subway, baby in arms, wearing a number lower than both parents. It undoes something in me. I hold Jackson a little tighter those nights. I couldn’t bear it, if it was me holding that baby. I couldn’t bear it if I’d made a little thing more important to me than anything else, and found that the 1 above its little head stayed in place when I stepped into the world.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.””
>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.
>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.
>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.
>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.
>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.
>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.
>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.
>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.
>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.
>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.
>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.
>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.
>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.
reblogging for study later AND to spread the info.
Seriously, get and run PiHole if you can. It changes your internet experience so much for the better. I get shocked when I visit a website when I’m someone else’s network, by just how many ads the internet is flooded with now. Take back control.
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amhrancas 