A new one, I mean. I’ll write a more coherent little wrap-up of things on Mr.-Main-Blog-that-I-also-never-blog-on, but here is a list of things.
That pretty much covers it. I feel like my conversational abilities are limited these days, because other than repeating boilerplate about which neighborhoods we might live in and all the things we don’t know yet, all I want to say is “Holy Shitballs!”
Internet Explorer story was bogus -
A story which suggested that users of Internet Explorer have a lower IQ than people who chose other browsers appears to have been an elaborate hoax.
A number of media organisations, including the BBC, reported on the research, put out by Canadian firm ApTiquant.
It later emerged that the company’s website was only recently set up and staff images were copied from a legitimate business in Paris.
It is unclear who was behind the stunt.
» via BBC
There were some really, really funny quotes in that story. I’m not shocked it was fake.
(via journo-geekery)
I’m starting to get really worked up about things. Words, mainly. Sometimes collections of words.
Like this:
….Those little Google Docs. They’re soOoo cute!
You can share a love poem with a Google Document…
You can share an Excel-like spreadsheet to plan a little girl’s birthday party…Wonderful.
But that’s like using a made-for-mud military Hummer to drive to your manicure appointment!
Now, look. I’m a pretty big nerd, and there are few things that suck me in as easily as the opportunity to download elaborate productivity tutorials that I can’t use and don’t need that much. Which is to say that I showed up on this site ready to download, re-tweet, and put the video on in the background later while I knit or do the dishes. And maybe get really excited about it and recommend that people download their tutorials.
But then I came across this. Oh, “a little girl’s birthday party” followed by a condescending “Wonderful”? Ok. Oh, wait, that’s then followed by a far more condescending belittling of a “feminine” activity and a reference to your classic prosthetic-penis car?
You know what I hear in this copy?
You’ve been using Google Docs for girly things. We can show you how to stop compromising your manhood and use them for the manly things they deserve to be used for.
You know what I say to that?
Fuck you, too.
I prefer my productivity without a side of being patronized.
Dear Lazy Self Indulgent Book Reviewer,
This old cover is the best.
Oh, you mean the cover I’ve had since I was six?
I had the old cover, but I think I lent it to a friend’s daughter. Then the friend stopped speaking to me and now I don’t have it. Boo.
Home Alone house for sale for $2.4 million.
The 4,250-square-foot, 14-room home sits on a half-acre lot and features four bedrooms, 3.2 baths, a large screened-in porch with a chandelier and, of course, the staircase sledded down by Culkin in John Hughes’ 1990 film.
Even though Home Alone is, by any civilized standards, a pretty awful movie about assholes and not really about Christmas (have you notices that the set design is what makes the film “about Christmas”? Everything in almost every shot is red and green. The entire house is decorated with a red and green color scheme. There are constant reminders that THIS IS HAPPENING AT CHRISTMAS ERGO IT IS A CHRISTMAS FILM), it’s among my favorites of all time. I appreciate it on a level that most other people do not understand.
I want this house. I want it like the Wet Bandits wanted it. I want to be inside it.
I want to buy it and hire people who look like Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci to rob it every Christmas Eve while I set up a series of sadistic booby traps. Due to the fact that most of Kevin McAllister’s traps would, in fact, kill a human or at least give a person a pretty bad case of tetanus (Paint can to the head? Several sustained seconds of blow torch to the cranium? Giant rusty nail and broken Christmas ornaments to the foot? It would take more than a few seconds of comical hopping or a quick dip in a snowbank to cure if that’s what ails you), the hired extras would wear protective gear and just pantomime being hurt.
But no one cool or fun can afford a house that costs $2.4 million, not in this economy. Someone horrible will buy it and live out their lame lives and I’ll be forced to drive by slowly and imagine a manequin party on the first floor.
Home Alone was the original Saw
Huh. My grandfather grew up next door to this house.
(via ipomoeaandthestarstealers)
Rob Lowe in Wayne’s World (1992)
Rob Lowe in Parks and Recreation (2010)
Twenty years have passed, people, and he is exactly the same damn age.
Rob Lowe is the devil
Rob Lowe isn’t the devil, Rob Lowe makes deals with the devil.
This led me on a journey that culminated here with guffaws of laughter. As my boyfriend put it: “and it’s called lowe-impact, which is something I associate with aquatic exercise.”
So there’s that.
What type of crib sheets? What type of bottles? Breast pump purchase or rent? Type of diapers? Do I seriously need all the bottle-feeding accessories before dude shows up? A WIPE WARMER? A bottle warmer? A diaper pail? One stroller that holds the car seat, or multiple strollers? A glider or the Ikea Poang chair? A sleep positioner?
Babies are confusing, y’all.
Recently I was recounting a friend’s baby-stuff angst to my mother (specifically about cribs), and she was like, “just put ‘er in a drawer, like we did with you!” Also she says that lots of the things are not as complicated as they make them sound.
Also, your baby is not going to sustain lifelong trauma from cold bum-wipes. Babies are resilient little people.
Adventures in shenanigans: Because I can’t take it easy, I’m now back tutoring at 826 and I’ll be... -
Because I can’t take it easy, I’m now back tutoring at 826 and I’ll be leading Book Club once a week, forcing me to write a book talk a week for middle-schoolers, and teaching them how to write about books to present the books they like to others.
I missed tutoring— I missed the kids, I missed…
I’m jealous - I finally had to take a break, thanks to my escalating anxiety situation and general overloadedness. But the kids will ask when they’re curious, and then it will be HUGELY entertaining, and they will say hilarious shit. So that will be pretty awesome, actually.
Well, the abortion debate is pretty complex and what I found out this summer is that the FAQ I had been working on for months became an abysmal failure (hence the reason we don’t have one) because everything is so connected with the understanding of everything else. But I will try to address some common pro-life arguments here just off the top of my head. This is not anywhere near a complete list, though.
Abortion is murder. Simple as that *smugly crosses arms*.
No, it’s not. Murder is murder because it infringes on the murdered person’s rights. Fetuses don’t have rights because they lack personhood and autonomy so it is impossible to actually murder them.
- Possible counter argument 1: Babies aren’t autonomous and neither are people in comas!
Yes they are. Babies are not reliant on a person’s organs to breathe, digest, or poop for them. The same is true for people in comas that use machines to assist breathing or some other bodily function. A fetus hijacks the host’s organs without permission. It is not autonomous because it is using someone else’s organ systems.
- Possible counterargument 2: But there are fetal homicide laws!!!!
Not every state has a fetal homicide law and unlike Law & Order would have you believe, many states that do have fetal homicide laws don’t actually apply a second murder charge to a defendant’s list of charges. Usually it just adds time to their conviction or an aggravated charge, not another murder charge. Fetal homicide laws have a minimum gestational age that the fetus must meet in order for the charges to apply, usually it is 12 weeks. Other states just don’t have these laws on the books. So why is it not murder? Because the murderer of the pregnant person doesn’t have a right to terminate the pregnant person’s pregnancy. Only the pregnant person has that right. I see fetal homicide charges akin to tacking on property damages to vandalism charges.
Women just shouldn’t have sex if they aren’t ready to have a baby…those whores!
Some women don’t ever want to have children, so would you honestly expect them to never have sex with their partners? Other women could DIE if they tried to carry a pregnancy to term because of health concerns. Are they also never allowed to have sex? Why is someone else’s sex life even your concern? It’s not normal to think this much about other people having sex, FYI.
- Possible counterargument: Well then they should use birth control…those whores!
Well, most women who get abortions were using some form of birth control at the time they conceived, but let’s ignore that small fact so we can talk about contraception failure rates and restrictions. Using contraception is not 100% guaranteed to prevent a pregnancy and the highest chance of not getting pregnant when using a hormonal birth control pill, for example, is about 99.98%, but that’s only if the person using the pill is using it correctly. That means it was never stored in a hot place, the person wasn’t on antibiotics, it’s not expired, the person is not overweight, the person never forgot to take it, etc. Since we don’t teach our children safe sex and how to accurately use contraception, the likelihood of perfect use actually being the case is probably lower than you think it is.
Women use abortion as birth control and I don’t support those whores!
Nope. And women who get more than one abortion are more likely to use birth control afterward which means women who have repeat abortions use abortion at a higher rate than women who have never gotten an abortion. This implies that women who get abortions make every effort possible to avoid getting another one.
Abortion is against the Bible.
I only think abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest or if the woman’s life is in danger.
Why? Do those fetuses have a lesser value than fetuses that are aborted by women who had consensual sex? If not, then why is it only okay to abort them when the woman did NOT have consensual sex? Are you aware of how sex-negative you are? Also, you’re pro-choice since you think some women should be allowed to have abortions meaning you think it should still be an option at least for some women you deem worthy enough.
Getting an abortion just skirts responsibility.
Would you make that argument for someone who gets an STD treated?
But a fetus is HUMAN!!!!
So is a tumor. Are you against chemotherapy or biopsies?
- Possible counterargument: But a tumor is bad a BABEEY isn’t!
How do you make that distinction? A fetus and a tumor are both made up of human cells, they both use the host’s blood system, they both grow exponentially, they can both kill the host. Neither one has personhood or rights.
Women who get abortions have Post-Abortion Syndrome.
Nope. The APA doesn’t recognize that as an actual disorder. They also say that most women feel relief after getting an abortion and those who have trouble coping with their abortion probably exhibited symptoms of mental health problems prior to even getting pregnant and are falsely attributing their inability to cope with the abortion. Also, women who give birth are more likely to experience negative psychological effects than women who get abortions.
Women wait too long to get abortions.
Really? 94.6 abortions take place BEFORE 16 weeks. Those that come after 21 weeks don’t even make up 2% of all abortions and are virtually always wanted but the fetus has severe birth defects or the health of the pregnant person is in danger.
Abortion is the same thing as slavery.
That should be your response but if you truly need some ammo:
- Slaves are autonomous people. Fetuses aren’t.
- Owning a slave is directly in violation of that slave’s rights because it is a person under the government.
Abortion is EXACTLY like the Holocaust!!!! You Nazi!
Again, this should be your response but if you really need an argument:
- The Holocaust was ethnic cleansing. Getting an abortion is not an orchestrated plot of the government’s to create a master race like Hitler wanted.
- Forcing someone to get an abortion is reproductive coercion and is not supported by pro-choicers. Forcing someone into a gas chamber by telling them it’s a shower…not the same thing.
- The Nazis killed people based on their race. No such thing is happening with pregnant people choosing abortion. I’m pretty sure the Jews were not given the choice to watch their children be thrown to German Shepherds and then shot in the head.
- Fetuses aren’t made to wear yellow stars of David and aren’t tattooed with their Auschwitz number.
- Getting an abortion and The Holocaust are not even close to the same thing. People were tortured, starved, and murdered by the Nazis. Fetuses can’t even feel pain.
What about this one woman I heard about who got an abortion at 40 weeks!??
You’ve met this woman?
No.
Okay then. Regardless, those women who get abortions in the third trimester? Yeah, those are the ones you thought deserved to get an abortion because their lives were in danger. When a person gets an abortion in the third trimester, two requirements must be met. The pregnant person WILL die and the fetus has severe birth defects that will prevent it from living outside the womb. If the fetus doesn’t have severe birth defects? It is delivered early and the pregnant person and fetus are both saved.
That’s all for now. I’m sure my followers will add to this.
I’d recommend reading this and this to enhance understanding of certain concepts like autonomy and personhood and what we mean by “choice”.
Love,
Rabble
Super comprehensive guide to every single abortion debate.
-Joe
Really important addition:
Making abortion illegal may not prevent abortion. Making abortion illegal is, instead, a death sentence for some women. The entire debate about abortion laws rests on the false premise that making something illegal (encoding our moral disapproval of something in the law) makes it go away. In fact, making something illegal often drives industries underground and marginalizes the ‘victims’ of the problem.
What are the goals? Fewer abortions, fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer deaths, and fewer miserable, abusive, or unsustainable families. Criminalization cannot, in fact, solve any of those problems. What can solve them? Regulation, health care, and conversation about sexuality and families. These things make it easier for women to find good information, for men to be informed about their roles, for mothers to feel safe and cared for, and for adoption to be a viable option.
(via ipomoeaandthestarstealers)
[…]
You know what I’ve learned? A person only flails around in regards to their rig when they don’t have a clear idea of what constitutes their work. Suitability and fit is paramount, and one is never going to find what they’re looking for if they don’t know what they need. So, I looked at my work, I watched how I used my computer for a day, and found out all I do is draw vector shapes, surf the web, listen to music, and bash words out in plain text. That’s hardly the type of activity that requires computational brute force, though I understand there are some of you out there that require just that. Not me though. Nope.
And these computers? As much as I love fiddle-faddling with the damn things, I mostly just want to forget I have one and get on with saying stuff and making things. I realized that I valued freedom more than power, flexibility more than blazing speed. I want the choice of being able to be mobile, and to carry around my whole setup with me at all times without much inconvenience.
This might just be total rubbish and I’m projecting things onto this machine, but I think I love it because I can’tfiddle-faddle with it. It’s un-fiddle-faddle-able. One more time: fiddle-faddle.
I keep returning to this post, both literally (I think I’ve read it three times) and figuratively. There are some super-practical things in here—like the backup play-by-play that got me to finally commit to an offsite backup—but there’s something bigger going on.
At my work, we just came out of a hellish week of technical problems. I had trouble getting locked out of client email, had some update issues, and then [DUNDUNDUN] our email servers went down for two days. Without any backup or recovery in place, this meant archiving, deleting, and rebuilding folder structures, rules, and settings in Outlook. For the second time in three months.
It’s not that big a thing, really - it only takes a few hours, and some general organization usually gets better in the process. So I started the week ready to go, get back to work, be productive…and my computer demanded I restart 4 times in one morning. The internet cut out regularly. While editing web content, I repeatedly got kicked off or logged out of the CMS without warning.
And this is what’s pernicious about unreliable IT — or about overly informative operating systems. They require—BY DESIGN—that you fiddle-faddle. A backup system that requires manually running? Fiddle. A forced-reset email password? Faddle. Email lost? Fiddle-faddle headdesk ouch. Security warning? Fiddle. Are you sure you want to access this page? Faddle. Pretty soon you’re practically afraid to commit to large chunks of real work because you know you’re going to be interrupted. Excuse me, your computer will say, quick question: do you mind if I run to the bathroom for a sec? And of course you don’t (only assholes don’t let people go to the bathroom when they need to), but there goes that project for a few minutes. And when it gets back it’s all, oh hey I totally didn’t mean to but I dropped your thing in the urinal and it got a little pee on it.
What I’m saying is that I want a computer with a bigger bladder, because I am damned tired of handing out hall passes and pausing class just cause this asshole has to pee. In fact, while we’re at it, could I get a computer that acts like a computer instead of a first-grader?
