starting a collection

Just in case you need to hear this, bedtime is not for looking at news. It's not time to watch videos about what's going on; it's not time to catch up or "stay informed". Your job at bedtime is to relax and clear your head and sleep, so that you can be rested and tackle another day tomorrow. That's your only responsibility at bedtime. That's how you serve the world best. At bedtime, relaxing and going the fuck to sleep is praxis.

After the hell of the past two days, this reminded me of what America could and should be about. It’s a little pocket of hope when our administration is trying to extinguish diversity and community and basic human decency and replace them with fear and hate and division.

zero patience for "irreversible damage" rhetoric because like... parents are allowed to do all kinds of other irreversible body modification to their kids and nobody gives a fuck. you can pierce your kid's ears, you can sign them up for a sport that will injure them for life, you can provide or withhold medical care like vaccines according to whatever whims you like. i've mentioned this before but my mom forced me to get laser hair removal done on my legs when i was a teenager because my body wasn't mine, the way i chose to upkeep it was a reflection on her. "irreversible damage" is very much part and parcel of the broader belief that parents own their children's bodies.

i have a suggestion

The other day, I asked my partner, “What are you doing?”

Simple question, right?

Except… he suddenly got defensive. His tone changed. I could feel tension building, and I had no idea why. So I took a breath and asked, “Wait, what did you hear me say?”

He paused, thought about it, and said, “I thought you meant ‘Why aren’t you doing anything?’ Like you were mad I was being lazy.”

But that wasn’t what I meant at all. I’d genuinely just been curious.

And that moment reminded me how easily things can go sideways when we assume intent. Our brains, especially when we’ve had messy pasts, trauma, or relationship anxiety, tend to fill in the blanks with the worst possible meaning.

But that one question, “What did you hear me say?”, turned what could’ve been an argument into understanding.

It gave both of us a chance to clarify before our brains made up a story that wasn’t true. I was able to explain, and he was able to listen. Understanding what I meant changed his tension entirely.

Sometimes the fight isn’t about what was said. It’s about what was heard.

“What did you hear me say?” can defuse a storm before it starts.

An excellent tool.

oakoak, 'Free Rothko', 2024 Source

The best thing about this is how much love for Rothko there is in it. Like... here. Here is a rectangle, and if you stand far away it's just two or three colors a bit streaky, and the closer you get the more it opens up until it swallows you whole with the idea of how vast it is, how much bigger than you. If someone framed the real-life sea and sky and told everybody that's what my artwork was like to them I'd kiss them

we should globally ban the introduction of more powerful computer hardware for 10-20 years, not as an AI safety thing (though we could frame it as that), but to force programmers to optimize their shit better

I reblogged this like 9 times kinda jokingly, but software should be able to run on older and less powerful hardware, and consume less power on newer hardware. Like, this is a real problem imo

I completely agree with this but I do need you to understand that the image above is 32 times the size of the lunar mission’s memory

Mmmm medication :) I love you medication. Modern medicine makes my life so much better. "Ohh you're so young maybe you'll want to taper off..." no thank you, I will keep taking the pills that resolve my symptoms :) thank you pharmacology I love you

beastly reminder

Almost. Years ago my computer suddenly stopped working and lost everything on it. Fortunately a relatively recent backup still existed bc of my family, a recent parts switch, and dumb luck. But last year a friend of mine got hacked and lost close to everything he had done creatively in the last 17-ish years. Art. Novels in progress. Entire conlangs. DnD character Sheets. Music he had made. All gone. He never backed any of it up. Few months later I started this habit (or ritual, almost) of drawing a reminder beast any time I would make a full complete backup. In hopes that seeing these things might remind others and myself. (Another factor here is that I am an animator and some of the stuff on my computer took literal years to make. And the film university I go to urges us to take this stuff seriously, too.)

There’s an old saying in the computer world.

That is why you back up your stuff. It isn’t if, it’s when. If it isn’t drive failure, it’s going to be malware, or ransomeware, or a battery that fails and destroys your laptop, or a lightning strike that destroys your system, or a house fire/flood/earthquake, or simple theft of your device, the list is as long as your arm. Someday you WILL have a problem that eats all of your data. Then the only thing that will save your a** will be backups. Personally I have three levels; TimeMachine, back up to the cloud, and a drive that I back everything up to once a month and keep in the fireproof safe.

Back up your stuff.

(That includes your phone and tablet too)

"Boy I sure wish there was a character who functions like me who's still made it somewhere in life!"

Commander Sir Samuel Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch:

The Expanse / 3×6

The unknown was right in front of her. And she faced it anyway.

Btw, if you’re every really bored and want to do something nice, there’s a website that lists about twenty-ish elderly people, a small blurb about them, and an address that you can send cards to. It changes monthly and you can write whatever you want (even if it’s short or just drawings). Been doing it all month and it’s such small thing that makes me feel so good and I know is making others smile. Random ass post, but genuinely is making me so happy every time I do it.

There was a young man from Peru

Whose limericks stopped at line two

There once was a man from Verdun

There once was a man from the sticks Whose limericks stopped at line six. They were fine till line five Then they took quite a dive — But the problem is easy to fix If you just ignore the last line, it doesn't even follow the rhyme scheme oh god I've really lost control of this thing I'm so sorry...

There once was a man

From Cork who got limericks

And haiku confused.

There once was a man from the sticks

Who liked to compose limericks

But he failed at the sport

Because he wrote them too short

@limerickshere

There once was a fellow named Dan, Whose poetry never would scan. When told this was so, He replied, "Yes, I know-- It's because I try to squeeze as many syllables into the last line as I possibly can."

On Tumblr did lasses and lads Their way with fail poetry had. You're having your fun But you're fooling no one - It takes skill to do something this bad.

my name is cow

and when i see

this tumblr post

it gives me glee

i think real hard

for words to pick

so i can fail

at limerick

There once was a [person] from [place],

Whose [body part] was [special case].

When [event] would occur,

It would cause [him or her]

To violate [law of time/space].