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First: this is a really good movie about fire https://www.elementalfilm.com/

I think that, like with Work Trivia Jeopardy, I’m probably banned from this game. But I haven’t yet been apprehended on this one, so:

Definitely more firefighter dramas

A scathing documentary about the carceral state and firefighting. It seems close to having its moment

Refugee stories, both based on true stories and not. Depending on the involved parties, maybe a persecuted Christian saint, a child surviving horrors in the Middle East, or aliens whose planet blew up. Tbh could just be 3 Body Problem going crazy viral

A drama about people who Defended Their Homes during fires. They’re heroes and maybe they were isolated after for long enough to get weird about it or there were secrets. But definitely defending their homes from fire is their most defining trait

So, the thing about disaster entertainment is that it tends to come in waves that mirror whatever our given fears and uncertainties are at the time. Nuclear war, the proliferation of technology, the alienation and isolation of modern society, changing social morals, terrorism, etc.. We've had disaster media waves for all of them, and it can actually be a really fascinating way to track culture.

With the LA Fires hitting our film based entertainment capital, I would put good money on a new wave of disaster media being started right now. Not in an exploitative way, but in a "trying to understand and cope via fiction" way. It'll be interesting to see what happens over the next handful of years.

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pro tip “he freed his erection” is the most useful phrase in any smut writer’s arsenal because it means never having to figure out a dude’s pants situation. how did he do it? were there zippers? buttons? some kind of bizarre lacing situation? maybe he cut off his pants with scissors. maybe it was a wizard. maybe it busted out like the hulk busts out of his shirts. no one knows. no one cares. his dick is out now and that is all that matters. thank you helpful dick wizard.

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Discussing baby’s future

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@wolftraps was commenting that they can tell this Stranger Things fic was written by a midwesterner because Robin has only been on vacation to Wisconsin Dells.

Perfect. Accurate. No notes.

Except I mentioned- well, Six Flags.

But she’d have to choose between Illinois and Ohio, and when did they even open.

So I looked up six flags great America, because that’s the one my physics class did a field trip to in high school. 1976, was initially built by Marriot. Neat.

Tristan provides that the Ohio one is Cedar Point. Or just Ohio. I look it up and find that yes it also would have been in operation during Robin’s childhood because it opened in 1870.

What.

18-fucking-70

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just heard a coworker say "I know this thing wouldn't even work for Jesus" about her printer

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shout out to everyone in south korea who went to bed early last night

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The answer to "What the h*ck goes on on those islands to the North and West of mainland Scotland?" by Derek Guy @/dieworkwear on twitter [x]

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Concept: TMA quotes but it's Barbie

Proof of concept:

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I grew up with the DIC dub of sailor moon. She had little psas at the end like ‘sailor moon says don’t have an eating disorder’ or ‘sailor moon says be a good friend.’

Bur the main takeaways from Sailor Moon were:

1. Sometimes gender is ‘rock’ or ‘sideways planet’ and you’re going to have a crush on them anyway.

2. Friendship is legitimately very important!!

3. Attempts to exploit teenage girls for profit should be met with ✨violence ✨

4. Always have a good outfit

And these are the important messages that are lost in ‘issues’ shows and tbh 90% of other shows I was exposed to while babysitting

modern American kids cartoons are just either cocomelon clones or ego stroking slop for emotionally stunted 30 year olds who need their political beliefs reinforced. there is no in between.

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ed zitron, a tech beat reporter, wrote an article about a recent paper that came out from goldman-sachs calling AI, in nicer terms, a grift. it is a really interesting article; hearing criticism from people who are not ignorant of the tech and have no reason to mince words is refreshing. it also brings up points and asks the right questions:

if AI is going to be a trillion dollar investment, what trillion dollar problem is it solving?

what does it mean when people say that AI will "get better"? what does that look like and how would it even be achieved? the article makes a point to debunk talking points about how all tech is misunderstood at first by pointing out that the tech it gets compared to the most, the internet and smartphones, were both created over the course of decades with roadmaps and clear goals. AI does not have this.

the american power grid straight up cannot handle the load required to run AI because it has not been meaningfully developed in decades. how are they going to overcome this hurdle (they aren't)?

people who are losing their jobs to this tech aren't being "replaced". they're just getting a taste of how little their managers care about their craft and how little they think of their consumer base. ai is not capable of replacing humans and there's no indication they ever will because...

all of these models use the same training data so now they're all giving the same wrong answers in the same voice. without massive and i mean EXPONENTIALLY MASSIVE troves of data to work with, they are pretty much as a standstill for any innovation they're imagining in their heads

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no but genuinely I lose a little more patience for people who won't wear wool, leather, silk, or fur every day that I live in a world where plastic is increasingly the only damn kind of clothing you can find (or the only kind of fabric for sewing, even)

obviously, animal cruelty is horrible. I believe that even industries that rely on the deaths of animals should make their lives as good and their ends as humane as possible. and many of these industries need tighter environmental regulations on their production practices- some of the chemicals involved are highly toxic and ill-controlled at times

but at some point, you have to wake up to the fact that the only alternative we've found to date is destroying our planet

it's all plastic. and plastic is horrible for the world- the environment, humans, and especially animals. how cruelty-free is it to cause mass habitat loss? or climate change that disrupts food sources for those animals on a vast scale? how is that better than the deaths of a relatively small proportion of animals comparatively?

(and don't even start with "but pineapple leather! but cactus leather!" when those are still basically plastic due to heavy plastics use in their production processes. there is currently no non-plastic alternative to most animal-based textile products)

I've always tried to keep in mind that we all have to decide where our line is, that we all consume and there's no way of living in this world that doesn't take something from it. that for me, plastic clothing is to be avoided as much as possible, and for others, animal clothing products are to be avoided as much as possible. that the choice is equally valid

but I'm having a hard time seeing it as valid anymore when it just feels like trying to push the unpleasant part away from yourself so you can pretend your choice has no negative impacts. you're not wearing animal skin (or wool that an animal didn't even die to produce), so surely your way of doing things is better! no animals were harmed in the making of your outfit!

except. they were.

they and all the rest of us.

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A bird explaining to a hedgehog crossing so it doesn’t die.

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Activism is not cold-calling.

Activism is not cold-calling, and this is critically important to understand.

I'm seeing a lot of posts on here about 'building bridges' and 'finding community,' and then (extremely valid) response posts saying "BUT HOW??" And I'm going to explain something that can be very counter-intuitive: there is strategy involved in community.

As a longtime volunteer labour organizer, I’ve taken and taught many trainings on the strategy of talking. Something that surprises a lot of people is the very first thing you do in a union campaign. You sit down with your organizing committee, take out pen and paper, and literally map it out. You draw a physical map of the workplace: where are the entrances, exits, break rooms, supervisor offices. Essentially, ‘where is it safe to have a union conversation.’ Then you draw another physical chart of your coworkers. You sort out who is union-friendly, openly hostile to unions, or somewhere in the middle, and then you plan out very deliberately and carefully who talks to whom and in what order.

Consider: If Vocally Leftist Jane walks up to Conservative David and says "hey what do you think about unions," David is going to shut down immediately. He's not inclined to listen to Jane. But if Jane talks to Moderate Jason and brings him into the fold, then Jason is a far more effective strategic choice to talk to David, and David may actually hear him out without an instant reaction.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: If Conservative David turns out to be Alt-Right David, and could be dangerous to follow organizers, we write him off. We are not trying to reach Alt-Right David. We are trying to reach Conservative David, who may actually be persuaded to find solidarity with other employees as fellow workers. Jason is a safe scout to find out which one he is. It does no one any good if Leftist Jane (or even Moderate Jane who is a visible minority) talks to Alt-Right David and puts herself on his radar. Not only has she done nothing to convince Alt-Right David to join a union - she's probably actively turned him against the idea - but now she's also in danger and the entire campaign is at risk. NOBODY WANTS THIS. Jane was NOT a hero for doing this. The organizing committee was foolish and enacted a terrible strategy to everyone's detriment.

Where you can make a difference is with people who will listen to you. You having a conversation with your well-meaning but clueless Centrist Democrat Auntie, and maybe gently helping her understand some things the media has been glossing over, is way more strategically useful than you marching up to MAGA Neighbour You've Met Once and trying to "build community" or "understand" them. They don't care. They're impervious, dangerous, and cruel. But maybe your beloved auntie will think about what you said, and then talk to her friend Anna who IDs as "fiscally conservative" but didn't vote because she can't bring herself to get on board with Trump. Then perhaps Anna talks to her brother Nic who has MAGA leanings but isn't all the way there yet. Proto-MAGA Nic would not have listened to you, nor would he have listened to Centrist Democrat Auntie, but he might absorb some of what his sister is saying.

This is not a cop-out or an echo chamber. This is you spending your time and energy strategically and safely. You are not a useful activist to anyone if you’re dead. Anyone who is telling you to hurl yourself directly at MAGA assholes like cannon fodder has no understanding of the strategy behind community building, and you should feel comfortable writing them off.

Last point: If you are tired, emotionally devastated, and/or in danger: take a break. This post is for people who would feel better jumping into action, not for people who are too overwhelmed to even think about it right now. You are worth so much even if you’re not actively Doing Activism, and your rest is worth more than “a break period so you can recharge and Do More Activism.” We all deserve the individual dignity of being worthy of comfort, rest & safety just on the basis of being human, outside of whatever we're doing for others' benefit. To deny ourselves that dignity is to devalue ourselves, and that’s the absolute last thing any of us should be doing right now.

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okay. holding ur hands as i say this. look me in the eyes. i know this is overwhelming so here's where we start. if he wants you dead then your first act of resistance is survival.