starless @starless@pixie.town

Anyone ever tell you bicycles don't grow on trees? Well in the Netherlands they do!

Without looking it up, how much RAM do you think the Atari 2600 has? I'm really curious how much people ballpark, and how far off they are, so please boost and don't post the reply in the answers.

💨

Asheton (@ashetonrenton on birdsite), a Latinx, disabled trans abuse survivor, is starting a public media project about anti-oppression that will probably catch the notice and harassment of white supremacists and the alt-right.

They need a privileged person to volunteer their time (in private correspondence they told me about one hour a day) to help them with their social media presence, for the sake of their own mental health.

As their platform grows, they will be creating a paid team to take this task on. They hope to have this set up by May. For now, this will have to be given in mutual aid, out of solidarity.

This will be an emotionally draining project, and for this reason, Asheton specifically requests a white, preferably cis, person who will not have to interact with the worst of the abuse in a way that directly intersects with their identity.

source: https://twitter.com/ashetonrenton/status/1386463113726287872

Microsoft now owns, or will soon own, one of the best text-to-speech engines for blind power-users, through its acquisition of Nuance. But the code has been abandoned for years. It seems unlikely that this TTS engine is a valuable asset for Microsoft. So let's petition them to open-source it. https://www.change.org/p/microsoft-open-source-eti-eloquence (No, I didn't start the petition, but I'm in agreement with it.)

"dipshit scientists somehow stunned by revelation that indigenous tribes were doing agriculture 200 years ago, show asses further by making a big deal about it"

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/pacific-northwest-s-forest-gardens-were-deliberately-planted-indigenous-people

as we talk about the morality of vaccine patents

i think it is a nice time to also remember historical precident

jonas salk did not patent the polio vaccine. he went out of his way to make sure it was not patented.

he never got rich. he actively made sure he didn't get rich off of it.

but that history is full of stories about how for the rest of his life, jonas salk did not have to ever pay for a beer in any bar in this country. he would get on airplanes and once somebody recognized his name, the entire damn plane would stand up and clap for him. he constantly had hotel rooms comped, meals for free at restaurants, thus and so.

because he was surrounded by people who knew he had saved their children from having to ever consider the fear of an iron lung, and were overwhelmingly grateful for it.

he was always modest and demure when recognized thusly. but i think that when people start saying "well why else would someone make a vaccine, if not to get paid for it and hold the patent", i think it is good to remember these stories. the world did not punish jonas salk for not patenting the polio vaccine. the world loved him for it. maybe not in the structures that billionaires are most used to. but they did love him for it, in small ways, in humble ways, on the individual level.

I'm really impressed at this.

The medical examiner who said the murderous cop didn't do a murder has been found to be SO wrong that the state of Maryland is going to review all in-custody death reports that happened while he worked for them. This includes Freddie Gray and other Black men who died struggling with police.

This is one way we start to deal with systemic issues. Once people tell you who they are, go back and check shit out!

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/04/24/maryland-reviews-exofficials-work-after-chauvin-trial-testimony

Gentle reminder to creators of worlds that white supremacy, while it is currently dominant in our world and seems all-encompassing, is neither inevitable nor "natural." It isn't even all that old. It arose under extremely specific historical circumstances, and can go away when circumstances change. To posit white supremacy as some kind of inevitable default without those specific circumstances is to give white supremacy more power than it has by unquestioningly imposing our current assumptions on worlds where the background conditions don't exist. It's incoherent worldbuilding and comes close to saying that white people are naturally "superior." I understand that authors want to explore real-world issues in their works, but it's ineffective if the integrity of the work is compromised.

Jingūmae 27 - ink 1

This telephone pole just has to be the center of attention in this picture.

#drawing #city #urban #architecture #workinprogress

#NYC State's Attorney Vance says his office will no longer prosecute #sexworkers for plying their trade, and asks judge to void 914 open cases involving the same https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/manhattan-prostitution-prosecution-cyrus-vance-b1835256.html