#for the amount of money they take from us

[joeyclaire]

my friend sami wanted me to share his story with you:

Today, my twin brothers, Hamza and Bilal, and I left home with a small amount of money to buy one kilo of flour that costs $90. While we were on our way, the occupation forces suddenly opened fire on us. My brother Hamza was shot in the leg and started bleeding heavily. Some medics rushed to pull him to safety, while Bilal and I had to lie flat on the ground and crawl toward a sand dune in the desert.

We survived by a miracle—just because we were trying to buy a little food to keep us alive. We didn’t ask for much, just enough to fill our stomachs and give us a chance to survive. But even that became a risk. I’m asking you from the bottom of my heart: stand with us and help us.

My name is Sami, and I want to live. I want to feel safe, even if it’s just for one hour. Please, don’t turn away as if nothing happened. Don’t ignore these words. Your donation could save a life. Even the smallest act of kindness can bring light to someone trapped in darkness.

Imagine yourself in my place—hurt, hungry, and scared—while others could help but choose not to. Please take a minute to think—and then donate. Your support will not be wasted.

[ptb-composer]

Her funding has actively amounted in anti trans paws being passed in the uk. Her money went towards a recent supreame court case that strips away many human rights from trans women and completely takes us out of the equality act.

People still tend to lump JK Rowling in with the category of ~problematic artists~ and I need everyone to understand that is not the problem with her. She is not comparable to anyone who wrote a piece of fiction you hate, or someone who made rude comments in 2015 and has since learned better.

She is far more like Elon Musk. She is a radicalized person with an extreme amount of social and financial power, and for YEARS she has been using that power to try to influence her government into hurting vulnerable people, on purpose. And she has succeeded. THAT is the problem with her, and THAT is why spending money on her books is so dangerous, not because her books aged badly.

Critiquing her work is fine, of course (I personally was never a fan so I really don’t care) but you NEED to understand that fiction is not the main issue here. And I truly think acting like she’s the same as the rest of any giant list of ~problematic creators of the week~ waters down how dangerous she is.

[magicalrocketships]

Rivers of Light || Max/Daniel || part 13 ||

(reminder that this in its entirety contains mpreg, reference to giving birth, Max Verstappen's bad dad, past abuse, and on-track accidents.) Continue suspending that disbelief.

All previous parts can be found in the masterpost here. This chapter is on AO3 here.

He hadn't thought past the birth. He'd assumed it would be bad then and fine afterwards. Sometimes he thinks it's worse now.

It's a long drive home.

Bastiaan never picks the same times to cry for both a wet nappy and a feed, and Daniel has to keep on stopping so Max can comfort his pitifully sobbing baby. Max's dad would have been furious with all the breaks, but Daniel doesn't complain. He buys them sandwiches and drinks around lunchtime, and when they have to pull over for a nappy change mid-afternoon, he holds the changing bag and passes things over when there aren't baby changing facilities and Bastiaan has to put up with the indignity of being changed on the back seat of the car with Max kneeling painfully in the gravel.

Max tries not to think about how there are only two nappies left in his bag, and only a handful at home. Before Bastiaan had arrived, Max had assumed babies peed a normal amount, but then Bastiaan had gone through 12 nappies in a single day and Max had to start buying bigger boxes of them. Max needs money, and he's going to need it soon. It's no longer a matter of Max wanting to go back to the only thing he's ever wanted to do with his life, it's a fucking necessity. Max is drowning.

Bastiaan doesn't enjoy the backseat change. He cries throughout. Max tries to be quick, but he's tired too, and his fingers feel thick and clumsy. He normally uses little disposable bags to put the used nappies in when he's done, but he can't get this one to open so Daniel has to take over and help.

"We will be home soon, Bastiaan," Max tells his baby, depositing the nappy and wipes into the bag Daniel's holding open for him. He wipes his hands clean on a fresh wipe, then busies himself pulling up Bastiaan's little leggings and adjusting his cardigan. "That'll be nice, won't it? Home and safe." He gathers Bastiaan into his arms, standing up and cradling a distressed little boy to his chest in the corner of a car park. "I know you're very put out. It wasn't nice waiting for a change, was it? Waking up wet and then having to wait for Daniel to stop." He kisses Bastiaan's hair, rocking him. Bastiaan likes being comforted. Daniel's tying the nappy bag closed then jogging to throw it away in an overflowing bin. Max kisses Bastiaan again. "Home soon." He doesn't know if he's comforting himself or his baby. Maybe both.

Daniel walks back. "All done," he says, brushing his hands on his jeans. He leans into the car and comes back out with a half drunk bottle of Coke. He drinks some of it and holds it out for Max to have a drink. "You okay?"

"Of course, Daniel," Max says, taking a sip and handing it back. Bastiaan is settling, but it's clear he's almost done with being in a car all day. Max feels the same. He stretches his legs, doing a couple of side lunges, one to the front, then another. It's different being cooped up as a passenger than out on the track or on the sim. It's hard when he's this tired. When he's still so fucking uncomfortable from giving birth. He's running out of pads for his underwear too and he didn't know he'd still be bleeding now. He hadn't had anyone to ask. He hadn't thought past the birth. He'd assumed it would be bad then and fine afterwards. Sometimes he thinks it's worse now, because it's been going on so long. He's been using an antiseptic cream he'd found in the bottom of one of his bags from his dad's, probably left over from when he was still racing. It's pretty much run out.

Daniel leans in and touches his finger to Bastiaan's pink cheek. Bastiaan promptly hiccups and looks very surprised. "You've had a very long couple of days, haven't you, Bastiaan? Bet you'll be glad to be home." He looks up at Max. "You too."

"Yeah," Max says. "I think it will be nice to be at home."

Daniel doesn't look away.

Max ducks his head to kiss Bastiaan's hair. Not long now.

&&&

Max dozes for the final bit of the journey. He opens his eyes when Daniel says, "Max, I think we're almost there." He's indicating off the main road, slowing down to turn right.

They're not there yet. Max had put the farmhouse address in the GPS, which isn't where he lives. It's close, but it's not where he lives.

"Is this right?" Daniel asks. He's pointing at the sign.

"Yes," Max says. "We are almost there."

They drive down the road. It's a minute or so before the farmhouse comes into view, and the robot voice starts to tell them that their destination is on the left. Daniel starts to slow down.

"No," Max says. "Drive on. That is the farm."

They drive on a little further. There are signs saying welcome to the holiday park. It's neatly manicured. There's a no guest access exit on the left; a farm track leading between trees.

"Down there," Max says.

"It says no entry," Daniel says.

"That doesn't mean us."

The wide track leads down beyond the pine trees and into a farmyard. There's an old tractor in the corner. The ground is caked dusty mud and gravel. There are three static caravans in the yard. One is brand new; it was only delivered last week. It's not going to be moved on to the site until next month, when one of the vans is due for an upgrade and is being swapped out. One is old and is waiting to be picked up. It's going to be used as a cheap clubhouse somewhere. The other is Max's. It's also old, but its British owner died a year ago, and the family has been arguing over ownership and waiting until the will has stopped being contested before they can sell it.

Max pays minimal rent to cover the pitch fees for the duration. He doesn't pay enough to keep it on the main holiday park site. Celine did him a favour by letting him live here, on the farm lands.

Bastiaan starts to cry.

"Baby, can you see where we are?" Max says. "We're home. And it's going to be nice to be home, isn't it? Where it's quiet and familiar." He looks up at Daniel, points out the window. "You can park there. Just by the door."

"Max," Daniel says.

"By the door," Max says, and he doesn't bother undoing the little harness keeping Bastiaan in the seat. He clicks open the belt securing the seat instead, sliding it over to him as he climbs out the car. His key is in his pocket. There's a little metal step stool by the caravan door, rubber footed and topped for extra grip. He puts the car seat down on it while he's unlocking the door, then brings Bastiaan inside with him.

It's just how he left it. The washing up hasn't done itself since he's been gone. His soup bowl is still half-submerged in water. He puts Bastiaan's car seat on the floor by his blanket, and undoes the buckle to get Bastiaan out. He sits on the floor with his back up against the sofa, and hugs his baby to his chest.

"Shush, little baby," Max says. "There's nothing to be scared or upset about now. We're at home now. There's your blanket, and in the bedroom there's your bed and my bed, and you don't have to be in a car any longer." Bastiaan has spent every night of his life since they came out of hospital in this caravan. Every night but last night. Everything must have been very scary and unfamiliar. He kisses Bastiaan's forehead. Then his nose. His cheek. Bastiaan fusses, but when Max tries out laying him down on the blanket with Max next to him, Bastiaan voices his displeasure. He likes being as close to Max as possible, and he's had to spend all day in a car and not in his daddy's arms.

It's okay. Max has missed hugging him too. He sits back up with him.

Daniel brings in Max's backpack and Bastiaan's changing bag and his suitcase. He puts them on the floor in the kitchen area because there's no space on Max's cluttered table. He goes back out and comes back with the carrycot and all the associated pram things. They go on the floor in front of the gas fire. Out again, and then he's back with his bag, and the remains of the snacks from the car.

"Can I stay here tonight?"

Max looks up at him. Daniel's expression looks funny. Max doesn't understand it. Maybe Daniel's as tired as Max is.

"The sofa's fine," Daniel says. "I won't be any trouble."

There is a second bedroom with twin beds, but Max uses one as Bastiaan's changing station and the other for all of Bastiaan's clothes. In his bedroom, he has one half of the bed and Bastiaan's Moses basket has the other half. Max doesn't want Daniel to go. He doesn't want him to leave Max here alone. He thinks the sofa pulls out but he hasn't ever tried it. He has a sleeping bag from when he first left his dad's.

"Yes," Max says. "You can stay."

"Great," Daniel says. His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Where's your toilet?"

"There," Max says, pointing towards the door at the other side of the kitchen, next to the door they've just come in through. "Through there and on the right."

Daniel comes back a moment later. "Have you got any toilet roll anywhere?"

Max shrugs. "Try the bathroom in my bedroom. At the end. I don't use this one much."

While he's gone, Max rocks his baby. "You're good," he tells Bastiaan, because he's going to tell him so much that Bastiaan will never, ever forget it and will never know what it feels like to be a disappointment. "You're the best little boy in the world."

Bastiaan's losing his little sock again. Max pulls it back up. Rearranges Bastiaan's cardigan so he's warm.

"It's going to be okay," Max tells him. He's not sure if he's telling Bastiaan or if he's telling himself. Bastiaan looks at him. He's not fussing any more. He's smiling. At Max. At his daddy. "I promise you. It's going to be okay."

Max just doesn't know how.

[acehimbo]

‼️ Urgent help to save my family's lives... ‼️

Please help me - my children are in real danger.

I am a father of four, living under the brunt of the genocide taking place in Gaza. 🍉

This is my story, and I am reaching out to you with a heart full of hope 💔✨, hoping that someone will empathize with what my family and I are going through.

We are suffering from hunger and life-threatening pain, and we have no money, no food, and no shelter.

Time is running out, and we are facing a critical situation. I ask you to help us, either by donating or by sharing this urgent appeal with others.

I'm begging you to help us 🥺

My children deserve to live happy and healthy lives, like children all over the world. My wife is suffering from toothache and needs an urgent panoramic photo, which is expensive and we can't afford it because we don't have the money.

So I humbly ask you to donate even a small amount, or at least share this appeal.

Here's my campaign link:

https://gofund.me/a0bfd354

Thank you so much for any support you can offer 💖.🌹

✅ The account has been verified on the official list by @gaza-evacuation-funds 🙏🫂😔

[bluejayy1]

🌙 Eid al-Adha in Gaza: No sacrifices… only the sounds of bombing!!

Please help me - my children are in real danger.

I am a father of four, living under the brunt of the genocide taking place in Gaza. 🍉

This is my story, and I am reaching out to you with a heart full of hope 💔✨, hoping someone will empathize with what my family and I are going through.

We are suffering from hunger and life-threatening pain, and we have no money, no food, and no shelter.

Time is running out, and we are facing a critical situation. I ask you to help us, either by donating or by sharing this urgent appeal with others.

Please help us 🥺

My children deserve to live happy and healthy lives, like children all over the world. My wife has a toothache and needs an urgent panoramic x-ray. It is expensive, and we cannot afford it because we don't have enough money.

So I humbly ask you to donate even a small amount, or at least share this call.

Here's my campaign link:

Thank you so much for any support you can offer. 💖🌹

✅ This account has been verified on the official list by @gaza-evacuation-funds 🙏🫂😔

!!!!

[can-we-die-now]

hell is other people

hell is a physics lab where you get a migraine squinting at tiny images on mirrors, stab yourself in the eye with a travelling microscope and have a one in ten chance of getting a working galvanometer or voltmeter

[fennecfoxfavouritefox]

I've been pondering this problem and I think I have a good solution now!

And I get to talk about Zipf's law, which is something that I have been wanting to talk about for a long time now.

Now Zipf's law is an observation that in systems where items in a distribution are more likely to be selected the more that they have already been selected, they tend to follow an inverse distribution, which can be expressed as

Where x_j is the number of instances of the jth most item in the distribution.

Originally, Zipf's law was observed in books for word distribution. In that if you arrange the words from most used all the way down to least used, they follow a Zipf's law, where for b = 1, the second most used word will appear 1/2 as often as the first, and the third most used word will appear 1/3 as often, then 1/4 and so on. Oftentimes a distribution that appears like this is known as Zipfian.

This model very accurately predicts the amount of times the nth word appears.

In other words, if you plot the nth word with it's frequency on a graph, where both axises are logged, the resulting plot should roughly follow a straight line. The most common explanation is that words that are used more are more likely to continue to get used more, and as such, a distribution like this will occur.

Here is a graph courtesy of Wikipedia

Now the cool thing about Zipf's law is that the same idea also applies to Youtube videos. Where the more views a Youtube video gets, the more views it will likely continue to get. So we can take the most viewed Youtube videos, run a linear regression on a log-log graph, and get a pretty good estimate at how many views the nth most viewed video has.

As for the most viewed videos, I found some rando on youtube that painstakingly archived the most viewed videos into a playlist, which I grabbed the viewcounts from then entered them into Desmos.

Here are the 200 most viewed videos on Youtube plotted on a log-log graph.

From the green line, we have a linear regression of the data, the orange line is a quadratic line of best fit, that excludes the first 20 data points because they vary very wildly. The blue line is assuming that b = 1 for an "idealized" Zipfian distribution, although for our data it is very off.

The white line is y = x, where the nth Youtube video has n views. So where these lines intersect the white line is the largest value where there are more than n Youtube videos with n views. From our intersection points, for the orange and green lines, we have estimates that the number that we are looking for is 4 million and 19 million respectively.

Alternatively, we could use the total number of videos and total number of views on Youtube to make a better estimate, since the area under the curve* is the total number of views, and the point in which the curve goes down to 0 is the total number of videos, and using these two pieces of information we can get a much more accurate model. However, these statistics have not been public for a long time now. *This is a discrete distribution, so I technically cannot do this

This is the best answer that I have at the moment, with empirical modelling, instead of thinking about it in my head considering the different types of videos that there are on Youtube, and making an educated guess.

The number for which it becomes false that there are n Youtube videos with more than n views is in the range of 4 to 19 million.

--☐☐☐☐--

Another reason why Zipf's law is fascinating to me is that it also serves as a good model for wealth distribution, as for money, the same criterion applies like in views and words. The more money that someone has, the more likely they are to get more money. So if we arrange the population of say, America, by net worth, and sort them from most to least, and plot each person's wealth on the log-log scale, we should also see a linear line of best fit on this log-log graph.

So if we approximate the US population to 340 million people, and if we assume that our exponent b is 1, that means that our model predicts the top 1% should have around 77% of the country's money. It is difficult to get actual estimates of this value, (maybe sort the most wealthy people in the US into Desmos, and do a regression and see?), The federal reserve bank claims that it is at around 30% which suggests the exponent b is around 0.74. These are just some back of the envelope calculations based on the first data that I was able to find.

I'm not an economist, but this exponent could be used as an indicator of wealth inequality across different countries. Or be used as a leftist rallying cry as this value will tend towards 1 as markets approach complete deregulation. But this is a story for someone else to tell. I'm just shooting my thoughts.

[stil-lindigo]

Bisan is calling for another global strike!

I saw some posts just outlining Jan 21st, and wanted to clarify that Bisan has called for a full seven days of action.

What a global strike would look like is:

calling in sick to work

purchasing bare essentials ahead of the week so you can observe the general boycott of goods / buying as little as you genuinely can

putting in a concerted effort to elevate Palestinian voices and make it clear that this strike is in support of a permanent ceasefire!

For those who will have to purchase necessary goods during this time, please observe the brands that the BDS movement is asking us to boycott!

♢♢♢

Right now is also a good time to mention some better uses for your money during this week.

Available e-sims in Gaza are running low!!

Mirna El Helbawi and her team are working round the clock to continue to connect Palestinians as Israel does its best to cut them off from the rest of the world.

You can learn how to purchase and send e-sims here, and below you’ll find a list of what is currently needed (the areas in brackets indicate what region you should select to buy e-sims in).

--

CareforGaza is an organisation that does verifiably good work, distributing supplies directly to Palestinian families.

They have a Gofundme set up at the moment, but because of Gofundme’s poor track record regarding refusing to transfer funds to Palestinians, I’d recommend continuing to donate directly to their PayPal here.

Good luck to all of you. Don't turn away from Palestine!

[irenespring]

I'm reading character rankings and Downton Abbey and apparently we are supposed to be annoyed at Branson when he shows up for....being right about class issues? Being a socialist? Annoying the Crawleys by making them think about the ethics of their money? Like seriously what am I missing here?

Multiple articles talk about him like he only became a good guy once he shut up and became one with the Crawley Aristocrat Horde but honestly I found him kind of boring when he didn't have a love interest. And speaking of, when he did have a love interest---the way poor Sarah was talked about jfc. When she showed up I was like "okay great I love her and her finally calling him on losing his socialist principles once the palace doors were opened to him, she's going to bring him back to his morals" but instead she was thrown out and treated like the absolute devil incarnate and all the protagonists joked about how obviously evil she was because as Mrs. Hughes said "heaven forbid we contradict the holy Family."

[msburgundy]

i must talk to the guy who offered me the part time bookkeeper job again (wasn't 100% sure i was qualified for it when he first brought it up lol) and depending on what the pay is, i may survive after all

[filthyfundie]

Went on the Forsyth yt, their last video was an announcement that they were stepping back from yt and it was posted 7 months ago. She’s still really active on IG, so I guessing this was an Adsense influenced choice.

But what’s important here is that at the start of the vlog Joy is chatting to the camera in the kitchen while Austin sits at the dinner table casually playing the violin. And look I know he’s a POS but I love him your honor.

[dkettchen]

oh also in other news, I had my revision top surgery today and it went well!!

I keep fucking having to remember like omg right I had surgery today bc it was such a tiny revision so it's like the babiest surgery I've had to date compared to its "I can't straighten my spine" and "I can't fucking breathe" predecessors 😅

[sonknuxadow]

while i was out yesterday i saw a sonic calendar that gave sage her own page which is already a big surprise in itself but i also dont think ive ever seen this particular art of her before. i mean its pretty obviously heavily referenced from an existing render of her but ive never seen this version of it where its in the 2d style unless im forgetting something. idk thought that was mildly interesting

[faunandfloraas]

Full offense but fans who get to go to fanmeets or performances and get close enough to take pictures and then proceed to whitewash the boys or maybe even face app their features so a nose looks smaller or sharper, skin texture is non existant, etc etc. Are literally bastards to me. You don't deserve to be there.

[the-little-crow]

If one more event happens in my life this week, hell, this month, I’m just gonna go lay in the woods and let nature reclaim me. I do NOT need another fucking plot line added to the goddamn soap opera I live in.

[wavernot4love]

is now the time 2 share that after telling my dad all the details of the Great Toronto LS Dunes Hostel Bus Adventure he has decided the two of us are indeed taking a bus trip for mcr rogers centre and staying in said hostel . oh he'll be evolving into a travel tiktoker in no time