#other than here and twit the other platform I spend the most time on is insta | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mochipon-vt · 1 year ago

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i realize that i've kinda been leaving this social out of the loop a bit probably due to the fact that i barely use twitter anymore since it's basically useless now and tumblr has vibes of heading in the same slippery slope direction as twit so it's made me shift my focus to being more active on bsky than anything else.

i apologize but it also seems to be coming to light a lil bit that tumblr is almost just as manipulative as twitter is/was for suppressing engagement and visibility and increasing amounts of users + bots abusing the tagging system is starting to render it useless as well.

but, aside from all that, i will try to keep any followers or viewers from my other locations informed and updated on things going on.

if anyone checked on my previous post of what happened in october, you'll know it got a bit stressful for me towards the end of the month which resulted in me forgetting about trying to plan things for halloween, hitting affiliate status on my twitch, my upcoming birthday and wanting to celebrate a sort of? 1 year anniversary for being able to stream consistently. and while i hadn't been planning anything huge or spectacular for it, i still wanted to make note of all these things i was excited to celebrate.

that being said, this month has been rather busy + some disrespectful viewers put me in a slump for a little bit that i'm still kinda slowly trying to bounce back from but the month is catching up to me quickly and i had planned to postpone any baby celebrations till the middle of this month. well, now i realize next week is holiday time already and i most likely won't be able to do MUCH celebrating or streaming due to spending time with family and friends etc so i'm gonna try to plan a little something for the end of this week to celebrate things. i'll post an update on whatever it is i plan to do.

i also wanted to toss this in here bc idk if anyone from here comes to view my streams but should anyone be interested or have input on what i play next after i finish mario wonder, feel free to vote on what you'd like to see me play next. all of these options are things i feel in the mood for playing in the near future so i literally don't care which one wins, i'm just incredibly indecisive.

but now having caught this social up to speed with what's going on, hope everyone is doing well and i'll try to update here more along side bsky but not twitter bc it just. is not worth anyone's time to bother with anymore. i had also wanted to maybe start using insta for art things but i'm not hearing great things about it's future recently and it has always seems quite horrible to do anything picture/photo related on there in a creative way + it seems like the uploads things in the worst resolution possible so. idk what to do with that account other than to keep up with people leaving twitter now. sure would be awesome if everyone would stop killing social platforms.

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theramseyloft · 5 years ago

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i read your long pigeon poop post, and after some poking around online i saw that a loft in melbourne australia failed. do you have any idea why that is?

Oh... my fucking God. I am so furious.

Look at this thing!

$70,000 went into this monstrosity?

It looks like they converted a fucking water tower by punching holes in it and welding on entryways shaped like the stereotypical toddler’s first house drawing!

Who fucking researched this?!

Was it designed by a committee purely by aesthetic?!

Here is an article I found on it’s decomission and removal.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-city-councils-70000-pigeon-loft-turned-into-scrap-metal-20160724-gqcmsc.html

According to the pigeon expert quoted in this article:

“Frank Hayes is the president of the Australian National Pigeon Association. While his group is mostly interested in show pigeons, a different breed to the city pests, he says it was fairly predictable the coop idea was never going to work.”

“ "The nature of the pigeon is that they find a home and they stick with it. So finding them somewhere else to go is a bit of a dream," said Mr Hayes.”

“ "Trying to shift them is one big headache. It's a worldwide problem and no one has ever figured out how to deal with it." ”

LOOK at this structure!!!

It’s made of fucking METAL!!!

In AUSTRAILIA!!!

In the fucking OPEN!!!!

From this charming article:

http://melbournedailyphotodaily.blogspot.com/2011/03/pigeon-loft-batman-park.html

“The loft is painted with light coloured corrosion resistant to reflect the heat and minimise internal over-heating. It houses two hundred nesting boxes for pigeon breeding. Eggs laid will be replaced with artificial eggs intended as a humane way to control and reduce pigeon numbers.”

That is a metal structure in the Melbourne sun...

No amount of Paint is gonna make that less an oven.

And I can’t imagine you can add anything to paint to make it corrosion resistant that isn’t noxious in a small space when the metal under it heats up.

“Bird feeding around the loft base is permitted to attract birds out of the CBD to this area. Bird feeding is not permitted in any other area around the CBD.”

But the city council is not actually providing the birds with good quality fed...

“... and no one has ever figured out how to deal with it."

No one, you ignorant twit?

NO ONE?!?!

Here is the site of a successful branch of the German Stadttauben Projekt, translated:

https://stadttauben-stuttgart.de/

“The Stuttgart pigeon project

Dear prospective customers,

nice that you found our homepage. We would like to introduce our project to you on the following pages:

The Stuttgart City Pigeon Project is an animal welfare-friendly concept for regulating and reducing city pigeons for the benefit of people and animals. We operate several supervised pigeon shots in the Stuttgart city area, in which the pigeons are cared for and their eggs are exchanged for dummies so that no offspring hatch. By the end of 2019, there had been well over 45,000 eggs. By feeding grain mixtures in our shots, the animals are no longer forced to look for food on the streets and squares in the area. They spend 80% of the day and the entire night in the dovecote. Ergo - your droppings also stay there and no longer land on roofs or balconies.

We were awarded the Baden-Württemberg State Animal Protection Award 2015 for our commitment .

The city pigeon is one of the most successful residents of the urban living space and today populates all major cities worldwide. It is the free-living descendant of the wild rock pigeons from the coastal and mountain areas in Africa and Eurasia. Long ago, the rock pigeons were domesticated by humans primarily for the purpose of meat production and thus also carried to our latitudes and cities. In modern times, the stock of the archetypal rock pigeon increasingly mixed with breeding, racing and sports pigeons that either escaped, were abandoned or, exhausted by exhausting competitive flights, ran aground in the cities. Today's city pigeons are the overgrown children and children's children of these rock, breeding and sports pigeons.

In cooperation with the state capital of Stuttgart, the Tierschutzverein Stuttgart und Umgebung eV launched the pigeon project in 2008. The cooperation was formed with the aim of bringing about a permanent and humane solution to the city pigeon problem.

The concept of the Federal Working Group for City Pigeons or the so-called * Augsburg Model * was helpful. It is based on scientific publications, practical experience and has already been successfully recommended by several federal states such as Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg. Today it is implemented in more than 80 German cities and towns. For example, there are pigeon houses looked after in Aachen, Augsburg, Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Saarbrücken and Wuppertal.

We aim for a small, supervised and healthy pigeon population in Stuttgart. Then the image of the city pigeon may rise again. Because healthy animals, which have a permanent home and receive animal feed, do not bother anyone!”

https://stadttauben-stuttgart.de/?page=1,0,0,Chronik+%26+Fakten

“Care instead of fighting: our chronicle

2008:The first step was a dovecote at platform 1 in Stuttgart main station

2009:The second blow was made in the roof of the Leonhardskirche

2009:The third pigeon house was on the Mühlgrün parking garage in Bad-Cannstatt, which has since been demolished and replaced by the pigeon tower in the rope

2010:The fourth facility was the pigeon tower in the city garden on Max-Kade-Weg

2011:The fifth pigeon house stood on the roof of the town hall garage until February 2016. Reconstruction on the roof of the city comb in April 2016.

2011:The sixth dovecote was a second stroke on the roof of the Leonhardskirche (other roof side)

2013:The seventh dovecote was built in the roof of the Fairkauf building in Stuttgart-Feuerbach

2014:The eighth pigeon loft was built (as a replacement for the location at the main station) on a flat roof in the Kriegsbergstrasse

2016:Dovecote number 9 was inaugurated in July 2016 at the Marienplatz in Stuttgart in the roof structure of the imperial building

2017:

On Landhausstrasse in the east of Stuttgart, we were able to set up dovecote No. 10 in the attic of a residential building. It was opened in June 2017

2018:In summer, an indoor pigeon tower was opened at Seilerwasen in Bad Cannstatt as a replacement for the Mühlgrün pigeon house

2019In autumn a new pigeon facility was inaugurated at the station in Zuffenhausen and the first egg was laid in December.

In addition, a dovecote (trailer) on the grounds of the shelter Stuttgart and Nistwand for about 30 pigeons on the will of the ASPCA Stuttgart House Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn in Stuttgart Zuffenhausen care.

... more dovecotes are to follow!

Health hazard facts

A health hazard due to pigeons flying around, running and sitting can be largely excluded. New scientific studies have shown (again) that pathogens that may be contained in the pigeon droppings are usually bird-specific and are therefore not transmitted to humans. This was confirmed in 1995 by the Federal Ministry of Health.

The general classification of the pigeon as a pest was withdrawn by the Federal Institute for Consumer Health Protection back in 1989 on the basis of research results at the time and the opinion from 2001.

Feed facts about pigeons

Feeding pigeons in Stuttgart is prohibited on public land. Well-meaning pigeon friends increase the population density of the city pigeons by regular feeding in the same place, without offering the additionally attracted animals sleeping and nesting places where they are tolerated or the clutch can be exchanged. This creates people who work there or often live more pigeon hate and more pigeon misery.

Above all, too many food scraps are thrown away on the streets and squares of the city! This waste is mostly not compatible with pigeons. They lead to illnesses, shortages and thus, among other things, to the unsightly liquid starvation. Nevertheless, due to the scarcity of bird-friendly feed in cities, these human foods are usually the main basis for the feeding of city pigeons, but their organism is designed for pure hard grain feed. So this means sick pigeon populations that nonetheless reproduce disproportionately due to their (pet) genes raised by humans.

If you would like to help sustainably, please contact us. Only other supervised dovecotes in the city area (including food and egg exchange) start at the root of the "problem". We welcome any support!”

From their gallery:

Here is a loft.

Small, wooden, well insulated from heat and cold.

Those openings are not the nests. They are just doorways with a landing ledge designed around the comfort of pigeons, which are social birds.

Here is the inside.

Lots of comfortable nest boxes, perches in the back, food, water, comfortable socialization space...

Here is an entry into another loft currently in use.

Here is the inside.

Water and feed are provided by the care takers. You can see feed and drinking stations all over the floor.

And this is the inside of a huge new loft in Frankfurt.

These German Taubbenhauses are designed around meeting the birds’ needs for food, comfort, safety from the elements, and socialization with their flock mates.

None of these birds had to be coerced or forcibly relocated.

Because their needs were better met, they came on their own.

Look at the $70,000 Melbourne monstronsity again!

More specifically, look at the bridge behind it.

And tell me where you would rather me.

Compact metal tower designed exclusively around convenient human access, metal nest boxes, 0 landing platforms, no socialization space, no protection from the elements, still no choice but to forage for what ever garbage people toss you...

or the comfortably Cool space under a concrete bridge with a convenient water source.

Three guesses what’s more comfortable for the pigeons.

Now, would you rather live under a bridge with constant noise from traffic, open to predators,

A well insulated apartment building with comfortable suites, a spacious common area, and a nutritious free meal plan with clean water included by default.

"It's a worldwide problem and no one has ever figured out how to deal with it."

My ass, Mr. Hayes!

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absentisanima · 4 years ago

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☣

‘Sup guys- here are some sports highlights of the couple of days:

Stayed up for 26 hours and am now going on 19 hours for no real reason other than whenever I spend time with other people I feel the compulsive need to spend hours alone so it fucks my schedule up

Made 4 face masks

Packaged 8 orders

Gained five (5) bot followers in the past day or two

Postponed going to the post office and the grocery store for 4 days (still haven’t gone)

Slept through Friday in it’s entirety

Missed most of the J/J twit drama because I was watching the Kim Possible Movie with my sister

Killed five mosquitos in my house

Got two and a half bug bites

Just had to use my /serious voice/ on my cat...which I kind of forgot I still possessed. Kind of channeled Sam energy- kind of freaked myself out

Found out my access to a working washing machine is now shot so I gotta start scraping together cash to go to the laundromat so that’ll be fun

Tried going down stairs in giant platform boots for the first time

and consequently almost killed myself nearly falling down the stairs

Had a store arm for a couple of days and only on the second day realized it was because I wrenched it when I grabbed for the banister so I didn’t catapult down the flight of stairs and crush my sister like a pancake

Set up a new online store

and lost a centipede somewhere in my room which is a kinda phobia in itself so I try not to think about it.

#outofsoul #[So anyway if you're wondering where I've been since I said I'd be here a couple of days ago and then wasn't this is it]#[It's weird writing out flashbacks in list form it's like watching a clip video but of just stuff I fell into doing]#[I thought today might have been Tuesday but by the time I sleep and get back up it might be so who knooowwws]#[Side note I found out there's a thing called time-blindness and when I heard that I had a sinking feeling lol whoops]#[Something to bring up if I ever venture into another therapy session I guess. :/ Add it to the ever increasing list my dudes we're vibingg]

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surflove808 · 7 years ago

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Do you think this cast is problematic and insensitive? Gather around the fire with me, you delicate tulips. Let me tell you a story.

There will be potty language. And there will be no straddling the fence to appease both sides. So, read at your own risk. But, absolutely always feel free to respond and engage in discussion!

When I got into this show, I fell down the rabbit hole like everyone else, and watched con footage and interviews and became more invested than I ever have in a show because of all the (perceived) incredible positivity and kindness reflected from the cast to the SPN Family and vice versa. I had never seen anything like it. And I was so impressed with this fandom and proud to be a part of it that I do something I rarely do - I gushed about it to friends. Even though I knew they'd give me shit. Because we think we're too cool for school or something. I don't know.

My love for this show and fandom eventually led me to Tumblr and the actors Twitter feeds. I went full fangirl. I thought, "Yay! Other people who enjoy this amazing show. Gifs! Funnies! Fanfics! Art! Support!" And there is that, undoubtedly....but there is also this seedy underbelly that gets far more attention that it merits. And I have become so disillusioned and angered by the shit I see here on the regular, not to mention Twitter.... that I feel like I need to disengage from following both (SPN-wise), so I don't burst a fucking capillary.

Before I do that.... to the handful of "fans" that have caused a Twitter uproar and instigated shortsighted and nasty smear campaigns regarding:

1. Jareds inappropriate joke

2. Mark Pellegrino and William Shatner defending Jared over some other Twitter bullshit. They didn’t cause the initial offense, they merely defended their buddy against all the flamers....which, apparently is not allowed for these specific individuals. They’re so evil. How dare they have a human response to seeing their friend get charbroiled online. It’s like they think they’re real people....

3. Jensen supporting his FRIEND JDM when he was harassed and lambasted on Twitter and Instagram for wearing a Blue Lives Matter t-shirt. *Also, see #2*

4. Jensens retweet of Pellegrinos very nice message welcoming India to the SPN Family (flooding Jensens feed with demands that he not support his castmate and friend because Mark stood up to them or because they don't agree with Marks ideology. Way to take something positive and turn it ugly, BTW. Sorry, India. Truly. I'm secondhand cringing over here.) *Also, see #2*

5. *See previous rants on this page*

There are always going to be people who feel compelled to stir up a lot of shit over anything these guys say and do, and they generally also apply that rule to most things in life, I'm guessing. And I know opinions are like assholes (everyone's got one), but really, there seem to be a handful of folks that LIVE for the drama around here. Get a grip. Be useful. Because what you seem to enjoy doing - Tearing down public figures in order to promote your own agenda, and making threats and accusations and spreading them like cancer? It's not productive. It's toxic. With regards to THE JOKE:

I don't want to tell the joke. TELL IT! No, my jokes are all inappropriate. TELL it! Nah... TELL IT ANYWAY, WE DON'T CARE! *Tells joke* *Sees personal integrity torpedoed and potentially damaged career/legacy due to an influx of online articles based on a handful of tweets by reactionary "fans" who probably weren't even there* Nice set-up, people.

Neither one of these guys is or has ever been anything but gracious to fans, not to mention caring and supportive. That's why fans from all over the world come to see them and share their personal stories of hardship with this cast. And they are certainly not proponents of rape culture.

These conventions are for adults, by adults. And if you bothered to even watch a sampling of con footage of these guys, your delicate sensibilities would probably be overwhelmed by the sexually charged and deeply inappropriate things that get said BY some fans TO these guys. But here's the thing, these actors take it in stride and treat their fans like friends. And these cons are very intimate and personal, open and extremely funny. Is content inappropriate sometimes? Yes, thank Chuck. THAT'S USUALLY WHAT MAKES IT FUNNY.

Have you ever watched a comedy routine? How do you handle dark humor? Can you? If you can't? Don't watch. Don't play Cards Against Humanity either. In fact....turn the internet off and spend time around real people. Build up some tolerance. Take your newfound tolerance to a domestic violence shelter and volunteer your time. Immerse yourself in a new culture. Read a few books. Educate yourself a bit and grow wiser. Pick your battles and fight for what's right. Not for what you "think" is right for Twit hits.

And you know what? If you're the type of person who is going to go on a witch hunt that results in these guys having to share the same platform with guys like Weinstein and Spacey, with potentially irreversible damage done to their professional and personal lives over something like THIS? Congratulations. You've become the thought police. You're demonizing people who have done a tremendous amount of good in the world around them via campaigns that stem from a desire to reach out to their fandom and support of people in crisis, particularly women, over a lame joke that Jared and especially Jensen, didn't feel was appropriate to share in the first place. These are genuinely kind and decent men, maybe do some more background research and check your motivation before you irrevocably damage someones well-being and livelihood.

And because I don’t know any of your names or whereabouts, I can’t actually fuck up your life, can I? And even if I could? Why on earth would I?? Anonymity’s great, though....isn’t it? We can go online and sit on our own virtual Mount Olympus, raining down accusations, judgments and sentences with minimal effort, foresight or concern for the ramifications of our actions.

And Jared is a prime example of that sometimes. I’m sorry to say, because he is a good dude, but he’s guilty of some of the same flamebroiling of people that you excuse yourselves from in the name of self righteousness. The difference is - you can hide behind your anonymity. He can’t. And I’m down with calling people on their bullshit behavior (clearly), and Jared has had it coming a few times, but THIS? This is ridiculous.

Since you seem to be fond of extreme responses, I could make the comparison that encouraging, no....demanding that someone do something that they don't want to do, and then shaming them for it when they do what you've asked? That's REAL textbook abuse. Chew on that for a minute.

Congrats again, because when you search either of their names, that's the FIRST thing that comes up. "Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles made a rape joke". The joke in and of itself doesn't and shouldn't negate all the good they've put out in the world, but in the eyes of the general public outside the fandom? NOW it does. THAT'S what people now see.

It's amazing how a 7 word joke can lead to online character assassination that tears down over a decade of good works. And I wouldn't blame them one bit for shutting down future cons and/or reducing their conversation with fans to subject matter that strictly pertains to the show.

And if you have stated any iteration of "I will no longer be a fan or watch this show because of these horrible meanies"... GOOD. FUCKING. RIDDANCE. It would make the SPN Family a much better place to be if ya'll and your other easily offended brethren who can dish it out, but can't take it, would fuck off to parts unknown to fixate on something else and leave us in peace.

#SPNFamily #easilyoffended #supernatural #Jared Padalecki #cw network #creationcons #Jensen Ackles #dean winchester #Sam Winchester #Misha Collins #castiel #lucifer #mark pellegrino #william shatner #akf #you are not alone #random acts

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movietvtechgeeks · 7 years ago

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/supernatural-fandom-gets-mirror-held-cyberbullying/

'Supernatural' fandom gets a mirror held up to the cyberbullying

Sadly, it seems that within many groups there will be a small contingent that likes to take its anger and frustration out on others, and many fans of the show "Supernatural" have felt this type of onslaught. It normally starts with a simple tweet, but then it quickly spirals out of control as the people getting attacked will defend themselves and wind up being called the bully. Yes, it sounds insane to the average person, but this is what happens as the bully pulls in their contingent of supporters to attack one person into submission. While it's a minority within a large group, it's a minority that has honed their skills so their voices are heard in the cacophony they create on social media making it look like an uprising. We've had this happen to us three different times even once having another website try to call us 'racist,' and anyone who reads our opinion pieces would realize what a load of bunk that it. In the past year this bullying of others, not to mention some of the actors and guest stars on "Supernatural" has taken a much uglier turn with tweets being taken out of context in an attempt to smear someone mainly because they hold different beliefs or someone just doesn't like their politics. There's plenty of other reasons, but many of these reasons just feel completely overblown, and in a different time would have been met with just a groan or roll of the eyes. Now, every slight is met with an army of frustrated minions who refuse to let things just roll off their back. The people doing this don't consider themselves bullies but as the victims and immediately go crying to their contingent when someone stands their ground with them. We're taught that when someone bullies us, we can defend ourselves, but this new kind of bully will continue battering away until they get the person to blow up on Twitter in frustration. Then this bully will say how out of control that person is feeling they have finally proven whatever point they were trying to make. It seems that there are much more beneficial ways to spend your life, but for some people, this is their life. One of our writers forwarded a very insightful post from Tumblr that truly hits things on the head with what has been happening within the "Supernatural" fandom minority. Having spoken to so many within the #SPNFamily, I've been told countless times how much they hate how this small contingent has created such a divide, but they also don't want to say anything as they know they will be next on this hitlist just for voicing a differing opinion. So, sometimes it takes someone to hold up a really big mirror to the people causing the problem to help unite people again and move forward. While it might be strong in its wording, I dare anyone to say that this person is wrong on how things have gotten so out of control. Our Carol Hansson touched on this regarding the recent slam on Jared Padalecki for a bad joke, but the one below really hits everything home. I thank Surflove808 for standing up and making the following statement and allowing us to reprint it here:

Do you think this cast is problematic and insensitive? Gather around the fire with me, you delicate tulips. Let me tell you a story.

There will be potty language. And there will be no straddling the fence to appease both sides. So, read at your own risk. But, absolutely always feel free to respond and engage in discussion! When I got into this show, I fell down the rabbit hole like everyone else, and watched con footage and interviews and became more invested than I ever have in a show because of all the (perceived) incredible positivity and kindness reflected from the cast to the SPN Family and vice versa. I had never seen anything like it. And I was so impressed with this fandom and proud to be a part of it that I do something I rarely do - I gushed about it to friends. Even though I knew they’d give me shit. Because we think we’re too cool for school or something. I don’t know. My love for this show and fandom eventually led me to Tumblr and the actors Twitter feeds. I went full fangirl. I thought, “Yay! Other people who enjoy this amazing show. Gifs! Funnies! Fanfics! Art! Support!" And there is that, undoubtedly….but there is also this seedy underbelly that gets far more attention that it merits. And I have become so disillusioned and angered by the shit I see here on the regular, not to mention Twitter…. that I feel like I need to disengage from following both (SPN-wise), so I don’t burst a fucking capillary. Before I do that…. to the handful of "fans” that have caused a Twitter uproar and instigated shortsighted and nasty smear campaigns regarding:

Jareds inappropriate joke

Mark Pellegrino and William Shatner defending Jared over some other Twitter bullshit. They didn’t cause the initial offense, they merely defended their buddy against all the flamers….which, apparently is not allowed for these specific individuals. They’re so evil. How dare they have a human response to seeing their friend get charbroiled online. It’s like they think they’re real people….

Jensen supporting his FRIEND JDM when he was harassed and lambasted on Twitter and Instagram for wearing a Blue Lives Matter t-shirt. *Also, see #2*

Jensens retweet of Pellegrinos very nice message welcoming India to the SPN Family (flooding Jensens feed with demands that he not support his castmate and friend because Mark stood up to them or because they don’t agree with Marks ideology. Way to take something positive and turn it ugly, BTW. Sorry, India. Truly. I’m secondhand cringing over here.) *Also, see #2*

*See previous rants on this page*

Can you please fuck off already? I hear Antarctica is nice this time of year, and that knitting is a great way to take your mind off things and meditate. I might follow my own advice, in fact. But stay the hell away from my yurt. I am stabby when it comes to you people. There are always going to be people who feel compelled to stir up a lot of shit over anything these guys say and do, and they generally also apply that rule to most things in life, I’m guessing. And I know opinions are like assholes (everyone’s got one), but really, there seem to be a handful of folks that LIVE for the drama around here. Get a grip. Be useful. Because what you seem to enjoy doing - Tearing down public figures in order to promote your own agenda, and making threats and accusations and spreading them like cancer? It’s not productive. It’s toxic. With regards to THE JOKE: I don’t want to tell the joke. TELL IT! No, my jokes are all inappropriate. TELL it! Nah… TELL IT ANYWAY, WE DON’T CARE! *Tells joke* *Sees personal integrity torpedoed and potentially damaged career/legacy due to an influx of online articles based on a handful of tweets by reactionary “fans” who probably weren’t even there* Nice set-up, people. Neither one of these guys is or has ever been anything but gracious to fans, not to mention caring and supportive. That’s why fans from all over the world come to see them and share their personal stories of hardship with this cast. And they are certainly not proponents of rape culture. These conventions are for adults, by adults. And if you bothered to even watch a sampling of con footage of these guys, your delicate sensibilities would probably be overwhelmed by the sexually charged and deeply inappropriate things that get said BY some fans TO these guys. But here’s the thing, these actors take it in stride and treat their fans like friends. And these cons are very intimate and personal, open and extremely funny. Is content inappropriate sometimes? Yes, thank Chuck. THAT’S USUALLY WHAT MAKES IT FUNNY. Have you ever watched a comedy routine? How do you handle dark humor? Can you? If you can’t? Don’t watch. Don’t play Cards Against Humanity either. In fact….turn the internet off and spend time around real people. Build up some tolerance. Take your newfound tolerance to a domestic violence shelter and volunteer your time. Immerse yourself in a new culture. Read a few books. Educate yourself a bit and grow wiser. Pick your battles and fight for what’s right. Not for what you “think” is right for Twit hits. And you know what? If you’re the type of person who is going to go on a witch hunt that results in these guys having to share the same platform with guys like Weinstein and Spacey, with potentially irreversible damage done to their professional and personal lives over something like THIS? Congratulations. You’ve become the thought police. You’re demonizing people who have done a tremendous amount of good in the world around them via campaigns that stem from a desire to reach out to their fandom and support of people in crisis, particularly women, over a lame joke that Jared and especially Jensen, didn’t feel was appropriate to share in the first place. These are genuinely kind and decent men, maybe do some more background research and check your motivation before you irrevocably damage someones well-being and livelihood. And because I don’t know any of your names or whereabouts, I can’t actually fuck up your life, can I? And even if I could? Why on earth would I?? Anonymity’s great, though….isn’t it? We can go online and sit on our own virtual Mount Olympus, raining down accusations, judgments and sentences with minimal effort, foresight or concern for the ramifications of our actions. And Jared is a prime example of that sometimes. I’m sorry to say, because he is a good dude, but he’s guilty of some of the same flamebroiling of people that you excuse yourselves from in the name of self righteousness. The difference is - you can hide behind your anonymity. He can’t. And I’m down with calling people on their bullshit behavior (clearly), and Jared has had it coming a few times, but THIS? This is ridiculous. Since you seem to be fond of extreme responses, I could make the comparison that encouraging, no….demanding that someone do something that they don’t want to do, and then shaming them for it when they do what you’ve asked? That’s REAL textbook abuse. Chew on that for a minute. Congrats again, because when you search either of their names, that’s the FIRST thing that comes up. "Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles made a rape joke". The joke in and of itself doesn’t and shouldn’t negate all the good they’ve put out in the world, but in the eyes of the general public outside the fandom? NOW it does. THAT’S what people now see. It’s amazing how a 7 word joke can lead to online character assassination that tears down over a decade of good works. And I wouldn’t blame them one bit for shutting down future cons and/or reducing their conversation with fans to subject matter that strictly pertains to the show. And if you have stated any iteration of “I will no longer be a fan or watch this show because of these horrible meanies”… GOOD. FUCKING. RIDDANCE. It would make the SPN Family a much better place to be if ya’ll and your other easily offended brethren who can dish it out, but can’t take it, would fuck off to parts unknown to fixate on something else and leave us in peace. While this may offend some, I do feel many others will celebrate and revel in its reminding us that we do live in a country where we can voice our opinion whether or not everyone agrees with it. We never learn by surrounding ourselves with only like-minded people. It's the people with differing opinions and ideologies that can teach us to grow and become better informed individuals.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

#cyberbullying #Featured #Jared Padalecki #Mark Pelligrino #Supernatural

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holytheoristtastemaker · 5 years ago

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The groundwork of all technology work, whether it's in software engineering, marketing, product management or on-call operations, is understanding the fundamentals. Getting a solid foundation in which to build a solid career upon requires some work to fully understand the basics. To understand the pervasiveness of the cloud in 2020 is overwhelming. From your Wal-Mart order for produce to the information on your favorite sports team, the cloud is part of providing the networking, storage and compute to power many parts of your daily life. Just to provide you with some of the financial implications globally of the cloud, this article in Feb 2020 shows the power of companies selecting cloud services:

Microsoft’s cloud services experienced the most significant growth, with revenue increasing 27%. Revenue in its business and productivity division, which includes LinkedIn, rose 17% to a total of $11.8 billion

The cloud, what is it?

Microsoft defines cloud computing as: the delivery of computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet (“the cloud”) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping you lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as your business needs change. The cloud comes with a number of major benefits that provide a leg up over traditional datacenter deployments. With a datacenter, you're relying on the operational overhead handle many of the big tasks that come along with reliably deploying services for your customers. I really like this definition of what I mean by overhead in this context:

Overhead (computing)

In computer science, overhead is any combination of excess or indirect computation time, memory, bandwidth, or other resources that are required to attain a particular goal. It is a special case of engineering overhead In the context of a datacenter, your overhead is the time and money spent on buying equipment, installtion, support, maintenance and security of your gear. You'll need to consider if you're going to rent a colocated space or building your own. Are you ensuring redunancy in your application? Does that mean you need a disaster recover location to handle failover? What about backups? Who ensure these are happening? Then there is compliance, are you beholden to GDPR, PCI, or any other external regulations? These are all things that Information Technology professionals have had to do to ensure their applications are always available. Seems like a ton of work, doesn't it? Well the reason people use the cloud many times is to offset this overhead to their vendor and spending more time on what their business actually does. If you're an e-commerce business, you want to spend your time improving your store, adding features and ensuring performance for your customers. The business is to sell people products, not to install computing infrastructure.

Top Benefits

Cloud computing is a big shift from the traditional way businesses think about IT resources. Here are seven common reasons organizations are turning to cloud computing services:

Cost - Rather than make a purchase up front for your datacenter gear, licenses and support - use a credit card and pay for what you need, when you need it.

Global Scale - Access to resources in datacenters across the planet. No installing, racking and stacking. Storage, compute and network resources whenever you need.

Performance - Use various types of CPUs, GPUs, enhanced networking and more to provide the best experience for your users.

Security - Remember all that compliance? That's done for you. Ensuring firewalls are configured by default, patching of Operating Systems and managing your secrets - all done in the cloud.

Speed - The ability to build, move fast and fail fast! If something doesn't work the way you want in your application, you can quickly spin up new resources. A Linux Virtual Machine is an example of a resource you can have available in just minutes.

Productivity - Focus on your business's needs - not the needs of a datacenter. Offset your IT tasks to managed services and reduce your overhead!

Reliability - The cloud comes with the knowledge, the tools and global datacenter availability to ensure that whatever you invent, it's invented with purpose. Reduce downtime, improve reliability and keep your app users happy!

Management over manual

Using the cloud means you have the ability to select managed service over those you need to maintain on your own. ****Managed services* is the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating need for, a range of processes and functions in order to improve operations and cut expenses.*** In the context of Microsoft Azure, there are so many managed services to select from. Let's say that you have a new CMS driven website that you are tasked with getting running. You could just set up a Linux VM, install a LAMP stack and then get Wordpress running, but you are assuming some risk here. By doing this without some managed services, you're reducing your ability to withstand many of the common problems with unmanaged servers. You may have MySQL, PHP and Apache all running on one single VM...what do you do when MySQL runs out of memory? What happens when your website is no longer available due to running into swap memory? More than likely you're going to spend some time on this once your pager goes off letting you know the site is offline. What if you could take away a lot of those headaches and still keep the CMS website online? Azure provides managed services for much of the common tasks you would associate with running a website like a Wordpress CMS. Azure provides a service to help you install, backup and maintain this service long term. By visiting the Azure Marketplace you'll be able to find this Wordpress app install. Rather than installing a MySQL server - we can select the Azure Database for MySQL managed service. Azure Database for MySQL provides fully managed, enterprise-ready community MySQL database as a service. You'll have backups, scalability and security you need for your database without having to configure it yourself. These are the tasks that can keep you up late or take a while to ensure you can automate. By using a managed service, you get all these feautres right out of the box.

What about my Word docs in the cloud?

Sure. there's a place for you. SaaS (software as a service) helps provide you with many of tasks like word processing, calendaring and email all in the cloud. No need to set up your own email server or a storage array with shares for your company. Select a SaaS like Microsoft 365, and much like our web service for our apps, we reduce overhead. Microsoft 365 is designed to help you achieve more with innovative Office apps, intelligent cloud services, and world-class security. SaaS solutions aren't just limited to productivity, you use them almost every day with tasks like signing documents, saving your files or even talking to a friend online.

Security first

Take advantage of multi-layered security provided by Microsoft across physical datacenters, infrastructure, and operations in Azure. Gain from the state-of-art security delivered in Azure data centers globally. Rely on a cloud that is built with customized hardware, has security controls integrated into the hardware and firmware components, and added protections against threats such as DDoS. Benefit from a team of more than 3,500 global cybersecurity experts that work together to help safeguard your business assets and data in Azure. Read even more about Secuity on Azure here.

The number of managed services Azure provides is tremendous, over 200 at the time of this blog. You have access to AI, IoT, DevOps tools, and so much more. You can get a view of the entire list of products by checking the Azure Directory of Cloud Services.

Sure there's tons of companies using the cloud... what about me?

Starting with the foundations to help you invent with purpose are there. By learning how to build applications, manage resources and more can help you get the most out of the cloud. Here are some great sources to begin using many of the things I discussed in this blog post:

Microsoft Learn

Master core concepts at your speed and on your schedule. Whether you've got 15 minutes or an hour, you can develop practical skills through interactive modules and paths. Learn has a number of learning paths to help you get your start. You can get the fundamentals down first and then move on to your certification showing your proficiency. Exam AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals is great to show you know how to use the foundational products that make up the cloud and Azure.

Docs

Discover comprehensive documentation for consumers, developers, and IT administrators through tutorials and code examples. Docs on subjects like Visual Studio Code, Microsoft 365, Azure and even gaming! The docs website contains tons of information, reference guides and even quickstart how-to's that can help you understand how to use the services described. One of my favorite quickstarts is Create an Azure Cosmos account, database, container, and items from the Azure portal. It's a perfect first step into understanding the global NoSQL database service, Cosmos DB.

Azure Advocates

Our team's charter is to help every technologist on the planet succeed, be they students or those working in enterprises or startups. We engage in outreach to developers and others in the software ecosystem, all designed to further technical education and proficiency with the Microsoft Cloud + AI platform. We create content, bring back feedback and do our best to help you learn about how to use Azure. Many of us are available on Twitter and want to hear what you're up to or need help with. Check out this guide for a list of advocates and their technology specialties!

Microsoft Build 2020

Join us for the 48-hour digital experience, at no cost, May 19-20. As developers come together to help the world solve new challenges, sharing knowledge and staying connected is more important than ever. Join your community to learn, connect, and code—to expand your skillset today, and innovate for tomorrow. For developers by developers, a non-stop, 48-hour interactive experience straight to your screen—but what if you can’t wait until May 19? Keep exploring leading up to the event and get a jumpstart on your Microsoft Build experience. This is a different kind of Microsoft Build delivered in a new way. Presenting a digital event provides the developer community unique opportunities to come together for a truly global experience. Register for free. Check out the full agenda!

PDT Experiences 8:00 AM Microsoft Build digital event begins 8:20 AM Empowering every developer, with Satya Nadella 8:40 AM Imagine Cup 9:00 AM Every developer is welcome, with Scott Hanselman and guests 10:15 AM Azure for every developer, with Scott Guthrie and guests 11:00 AM Building the tools for modern work, with Rajesh Jha and guests 12:30 PM Digital Breakouts with live Q&A 4:45 PM Social Hour: Mix, Mingle, and Celebrate 5:20 PM Empowering every developer, with Satya Nadella 5:40 PM Imagine Cup 6:00 PM Every developer is welcome, with Scott Hanselman and guests 7:30 PM Digital Breakouts with live Q&A

PDT Experiences 12:15 AM Azure for every developer, with Scott Guthrie and guests 1:00 AM New ways to work and learn, with Rajesh Jha and guests 2:00 AM Digital Breakouts with live Q&A 9:45 AM The future of tech, with Kevin Scott and guests 10:30 AM Ask Scott Guthrie, with Scott Guthrie 11:30 AM Power Platform for developers, with James Philips 12:30 PM Digital Breakouts with live Q&A 6:30 PM Social Hour: Mix, Mingle, and Celebrate 7:30 PM The future of tech, with Kevin Scott and guests 8:15 PM Power Platform for developers, with James Philips 9:30 PM Digital Breakouts with live Q&A

Get started

What do you want to learn about the cloud today? This blog should help you at least start finding a path to getting those answers on what you want to invent with purpose.

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duaneodavila · 6 years ago

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Twitter Rules, Blawgs Drool

Want to know how clueless I am? When twitter came onto the scene, I scoffed. Back in 2008, the blawgosphere was in full swing, vibrant and, for the most part, pretty darn thoughtful. Posts were a fraction of the length of a law review article, informal and, for the most part, sound. Sure, there were some bad actors in the blawgosphere, and some less-than-good actors, but at least there was good stuff to balance it out.

But I was wrong, and twitter became a thing. I refused to accept this for a while, and even now refuse to discuss my blawg posts on twitter, as twits are transitory and thus fail to contribute to the discussion here. It doesn’t stop anyone from commenting about a post on twitter, but I won’t engage with it. One law student chastised me for it, impugning my motives because she demanded I do things her way. Aren’t law students adorable?

Today, however, my posts are too long and require too much effort, and they aren’t read by enough people to make a difference. David French explains why.

One of the first things you learn when you start your professional life is that the people who care the most have the most influence.

It’s true in every business, from entertainment to the law to politics. In fact, given our extreme levels of public apathy and civic ignorance, it’s remarkable how few people it takes to transform a political debate.

When one juxtaposes the influence of people who care versus people are are apathetic, this assertion is sound. But caring alone isn’t enough. There are tons of folks who care, and I mean really care, who have no influence at all. It may be because their passion is offset by their ignorance or their attitude, such that they can care all day long but nobody cares back.

And that brings us to Twitter. By measure of active users, it’s a lightweight. Facebook is the behemoth, with more than 2.2 billion people on the platform. YouTube has 1.9 billion, Instagram 1 billion. Twitter is all the way down below China’s Qzone and TikTok at a mere 335 million. But in public influence it punches far above its weight. Why? Because it’s where cultural kingmakers congregate, and thus where conventional wisdom is formed and shaped — often instantly and thoughtlessly.

In other words, Twitter is where the people who care the most spend their time. The disproportionate influence of microbursts of instant public comments from a curated set of people these influencers follow shapes their writing and thinking and conduct way beyond the platform.

This raises a serious question. What makes someone a “cultural kingmaker”? Why do millions of people follow Kylie Jenner? Why do other people have twelve followers despite tens of thousands of twits? Why do the latter persist in twit-storming the former, when they’re just random people who harbor the mistaken belief that people who don’t know them care deeply about their feelings on a broad array of issues?

Even worse, given the geographic and social sorting that dominates American life, Twitter can present any given activist with a near-exclusive look at the other side of the aisle. Thus, MAGA-Twitter is Trump’s America. Social-Justice Twitter is progressive America. And to the extent that other influencers (CEOs, studio heads, government bureaucrats, etc.) are online themselves, they’re often captured by the same hysteria.

David is, as everyone who twits is aware, absolutely right about the perception created on the twitters. There are complete nutjobs spewing utter nonsense who huge followings who are taken to represent wide swatches of America. While one can question whether they really do, the fact that they have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers can’t be ignored. Nobody forces anyone to follow them. If someone follows (or unfollows), that’s a personal choice. That people follow someone as loony as Amy Siskind or Seth Abramson (who has blocked me) speaks to the influence they wield.

Yet, David continues to write blog-post length articles, just as I continue to write SJ posts (although he does so for a living, while I, purist that I am, do so for love). Why bother? If we’re not reaching enough people to influence the masses, to gather millions of followers and, with a pithy twit, change the course of legal or political discussion, is this anything more than mental masturbation?

It’s tempting, when reading a news feed full of rage and hysteria, to console yourself in the knowledge that it’s “just Twitter.” But behind those angry, hyperbolic tweets (well, the blue-check-marked ones, anyway) are people, and those people are disproportionately the most engaged and most influential men and women in American public life. It’s “just” the American political class putting its rage and intemperance on display, hoping to remake the world in its own irate image. And the surprising success of that attempted makeover should scare you, whatever your own political views are.

It does scare me, but less so for its influence than for its shallowness. My initial reaction to twitter haunts me, that the constraint of a twit, a “microburst” as David calls it, is just enough to fuel the simpletons to fury, but markedly short of achieving any communication of depth. What it’s manage to accomplish, beyond merely spreading misinformation to the confirmation biased, is leave people with the firm belief that all problems, all issues, all positions, are susceptible to a 280 (up from the original 140 character) solution. Anything beyond a twit is too requires too much effort to consider.

What twitter has managed to do is create tribes that rally around slogans with neither the knowledge nor experience to grasp what the hell they’re talking about. And yet, we take these tribes seriously as a reflection of what society believes, what people really want. The problem with twitter isn’t just whether it reflects only the loudest, most hyperbolic views, but whether it has managed to replace the expression of any deeper thought with the most simplistic of echo chambers.

What scares me isn’t that twitter rules, but that blawgs, short-form though they may be, are too long and require too much effort to be worth the bother to read. When it comes to law, more than a twit is almost always necessary to address any issue thoughtfully and accurately. But the only thing harder than law is thinking.

There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.

–Sir Joshua Reynolds

Who knew the expedient would end up being twitter?

Twitter Rules, Blawgs Drool republished via Simple Justice

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duaneodavila · 6 years ago

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Journalist, Heal Thyself

Maggie Haberman is an excellent reporter, a big player in the big leagues of journalism as the White House correspondent for the New York Times. And like many in her position, and indeed like many who aren’t in her position but have just had enough of the constant onslaught of idiocy, she’s decided to take a twitter hiatus.

That’s cool. Many others have, and many of us take the occasional week or month off from the never-ending reminder that the average IQ is 100, and half of all twitter users are below that. But Haberman didn’t just log off. She wrote an op-ed.

The evening before, I had complained to a close friend that I hated being on Twitter. It was distorting discourse, I said. I couldn’t turn off the noise. She asked what was the worst that could happen if I stepped away from it.

There was nothing I could think of. And so just after 6 p.m. last Sunday, I did.

In the early days of twitter, it was fairly benign. People posted pics of dinner and made jokes, most anodyne but some that would become problematic years later as the warring tribes searched for reasons to attack. But the tenor has changed markedly since Trump, and Maggie being all Trump, all the time, was a natural target.

After nearly nine years and 187,000 tweets, I have used Twitter enough to know that it no longer works well for me.

That’s a lot of twits. I’ve been on twitter for ten years, and have about half as many. It may be because she’s used twitter as a delivery mechanism for breaking news, or felt compelled to engage with others, some worth her time and others just idiots of either the useful or annoying types.

Twitter has stopped being a place where I could learn things I didn’t know, glean information that was free from errors about a breaking news story or engage in a discussion and be reasonably confident that people’s criticisms were in good faith.

This is where Haberman’s rationale starts to break down. Twitter, like any medium, is merely a forum, a platform where there will be smart and dumb, honest and dishonest, good faith and bad. There are remarkably good things, funny jokes, interesting asides and fascinating discussions. And there’s tons of garbage. This was always the case. Even when it was less offensive, it was still largely dumb. After all, the twits come from people, and people aren’t nearly as fabulous as we should be. Not you, of course. You are totally fab. Other people.

The viciousness, toxic partisan anger, intellectual dishonesty, motive-questioning and sexism are at all-time highs, with no end in sight. It is a place where people who are understandably upset about any number of things go to feed their anger, where the underbelly of free speech is at its most bilious.

And here is where Maggie goes rouge. Viciousness? Check. Toxic partisan anger? Beyond belief. Intellectual dishonesty? Oh yeah. Motive-questioning? It’s become an art form in the hands of trolls. Sexism? Wait, how did that get into the same list as the others? Why not racism? Is Haberman a racist, or homophobe, or, god forbid, a xenophobe? See the problem?

Whether it’s at an all-time high may be debatable, as the shameless use of hyperbole is taken for granted, but it’s bad. And so what? If the pain of seeing the toxic combination of ignorance and outrage becomes too much, blink, shrug, scroll. But for Maggie, in particular, to complain about the ugliness and stupidity of people seems, well, disingenuous.

More recently, instead of engaging in thoughtful debates, I found myself spending an increasing amount of time explaining an errant word or a poorly phrased tweet, and coming off defensive as I did it. At other times, I watched as an offhand comment became tinder for a divisive national conversation.

On Twitter, everything is shrunk down to the same size, making it harder to discern what is a big deal and what is not. Tone often overshadows the actual news. All outrages appear equal. And that makes it harder for significant events — like Mr. Trump’s extraordinarily pliant performance with President Vladimir Putin of Russia — to break through.

Having read the New York Times for decades, including the past two years, this complaint cannot go unnoticed. There hasn’t been a day since Trump was the Republican candidate that the New York Times, the Paper of Record, hasn’t had at least two, if not more, editorials or op-eds that didn’t proclaim him “literally Hitler,” bringing the Apocalypse upon us, destroying everything that was good and holy.

Your paper, Maggie, gave it’s precious real estate to some of the most ridiculous, outrageous, baseless, and yes, utterly false, claims of the end of times. I’ve discussed a few of them here from time to time, but it could be a career vetting the inane op-eds. Have you ever read Michelle Goldberg’s columns? Poor Charles Blow has lost his mind. Or my favorite muse, Roxane Gay?

While I appreciate that as a reporter, you’re given assignments in your role as White House correspondent, but who has done more to elevate every burp and fart of this administration to prominence than you, Maggie?

As of this moment, you have over 880,000 followers on twitter. Have you ever twitted that something Trump did, said, twitted, was dumb but insignificant? The vast majority of things that have come from the White House fits that characterization, dumb but insignificant. Have you used your clout on twitter to calm down the outrage, to focus on things that truly matter and distinguish the wheat from the chafe? Or have you broadcast them all the same, feeding the outrage machine even as you hold yourself aloof from the vicious animals and the flaming nutjobs?

You want off twitter? So get off twitter. Log out and don’t look back, just like mere mortals might do. But you and your paper are integral to this cesspool. to feeding red meat to the starving mob. You bear responsibility for this disease of twitter, and yet you blame twitter and want to walk away from the mess you were integral in making?

You don’t owe anyone twits. You can twit or not, as you choose. You owe no one your twits. But since you chose to “explain” yourself, at least be honest about what you’re walking away from and your complicity in making it the cesspool it is.

Journalist, Heal Thyself republished via Simple Justice

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