Mostly lemon based

Category: General

  • Computah Debates

    So, my MacBook is dying. Or at least, chronically unwell. After 7 years’ service it’s started to develop new and unexpected problems. For a long time it’s had the “crash because one of the SIMM sockets is poorly fitted” memory corruption issues. It’s done this ever since I stuck RAM into the second socket; and done it regardless of which stick is in that socket. It visibly doesn’t really align correctly, and is quite, quite annoying.

    However, now it just randomly switches off. Today, with the battery at 34% it went “oh, no, I don’t think so” and without warning, nor record in the error logs, it was switched off. Unfortunately, this is by no means the first time it’s happened. It happens more often when it’s not plugged in, but not exclusively. Apple might well say its the non-brand battery, or the non-brand charger*. But I’m loathe to spend any more money on a 7 year old laptop – especially one that’s never been perfect. Also one that lacks the power to do some of the things I’d like to (and indeed plan to) do.

    The problem is where this leaves me.

    I really don’t want to fork out for a new laptop at the moment (although the idea of an infinity / 4k type display does appeal quite a lot). I do keep looking at the laptops on dell’s B-grade stock page though (because they do a laptop that ships with ubuntu – although not from their B-grade stock page – but presumably that should be fairly easy to remedy). Part of the reason I don’t really want to splash out on a laptop is that I bought the Jolla tablet – the idea being that I’d use that for much of my dinking, and prolong the life of this aged beasty. However, the Jolla tablet’s not arrived yet – nor does it have an actual shipping date.

    Now when I bought that I was thinking I’d probably get a desktop for the grunt work, because I rarely do stuff like that when Kathryn’s home, or indeed, while I’m slumped on the sofa. But it turns out that we’re now considering living in a much smaller space when we get to the US (and potentially spending 2 weeks on a boat getting there) and I might, actually, want a laptop for that… Rather than a hulking great desktop and associated monitor. Which muddies the plan a little.

    Thankfully, I currently don’t have 800 quid to throw at the problem anyway.

    Of course, the problem is, one of these days this laptop’s either not going to come on, or is going to become so unreliable that it’ll make me do the *augh-for-fuck’s-sake-[click-spendy]* thing, which is probably not a good plan.

    * Although, given that Nikki mentioned that apple did tell her to replace her no-brand charger with an apple branded one, and it did solve some problem or other, I’m contemplating whipping the cable off my non-branded one and sticking it on my real apple one. Hrm.

  • highfiveshiningstrike:

    If you’re more outraged at the Confederate Flag being removed than you are of people being murdered in a place of worship, then it’s about time that you re-evaluated your life.

  • amirosebooks:

    shikarius:

    shikarius:

    shikarius:

    shikarius:

    Sometimes I like to think of myself as a Reasonable Adult who makes Reasonable Adult Decisions.

    And then sometimes Amazon marketing figures out that I’m pretending

    image

    Adulting powers activate (I’m a little concerned about the Minions box)

    image

    Taste test result: Odinforce is far more fragrant and flavorful, though both are amazingly smooth for oral caffeine delivery systems. This is legitimately tasty coffee. I rarely take my coffee black because of the acidity, but these were surprisingly smooth (which is in line with a darker roast not necessarily meaning stronger coffee).

    I wish they sold the whole roasted beans; I’d love to grind these up fresh. (THEY DO.)

    Dad likes the more flavorful Odinforce best while I’m more partial to the smoother Death Wish, but I’m very pleased with both.

    Overall, I’d marry this coffee, probably.

    Update: I think I’ve made a minor logistical error. I think you’re not meant to drink a cup and a half of each in the space of 10 minutes.

    …I think I’m starting to feel colors.

    The gates of Valhalla are open. Witness me.

    writingabeautifuldisaster

  • solarbird:

    gorillamunchies:

    no thank you, owen

    owen interned at torgo’s pizzaria.

  • Why is the “historical realism” thing always rape?

    animatedamerican:

    nextyearsgirl:

    thatweirdo-intheduckieshirt:

    drst:

    darthmelyanna:

    drst:

    A couple weeks ago The Mary Sue announced they weren’t going to cover “Game of Thrones” any more after yet another female character being brutally raped. The thread is still being invaded by trolls periodically, and there are more than 12,000 comments on the article, which is a site record and probably an internet record. (12K comments because a single website said “We’re not going to recap or promote this show any more.” Baffling.)

    Tons of trolls have thrown out the “but THINGS WERE JUST LIKE THAT BACK THEN!” argument ad nauseum. Which is total bullshit, of course. Now with the season finale of “Outlander” (which, spoiler, also included rape) the trolls are coming back.

    I just want to ask, why is it whenever producers/directors/writers want to demonstrate “gritty historic realism” it’s ALWAYS RAPE? It’s always sexual violence toward women/girls.

    You know what would be gritty historic realism? Dysentery. GoT has battles and armies marching all over the place. You want to show “what things were like back then”? Why aren’t we seeing 500 guys by the side of a road puking and shitting their guts out from drinking contaminated water while the rest of the army straggles along trying to keep going? Or a village getting wiped out by cholera? Or typhus, polio or plague epidemics? 

    You want to show what it was like back then for women? Show a woman dying of sepsis from an infection she caught while giving birth. Show a woman coping with ruptured ovarian cysts with nobody know what it is. Breast cancer that the audience will recognize immediately but the characters think is some mark of the devil or some shit.

    But no, it’s always rape. And we all know why that is. Because these douchecanoes that do this, though they’ll deny it, think rape is sexy. Because they can’t make a modern set story where women get raped in every god damned episode without being called monsters. So they use “but but historical realism!” to cover their sexism (see “Mad Men”) and misogyny. Then they tell us “That’s just how it was back then!” with the clear implication “Shut the fuck up bitch, because that could be you  and you should be thanking me that it’s not.”

    Can we propose a rule for “realistic” historical fiction/fantasy? Twelve graphic cases of dysentery for every one graphic rape?

    ^^ I like this idea.

    And the worst part about it is that, by their own logic, their argument isn’t even a valid one.  They’re saying that rape is “historically accurate” in Game of Thrones, a show which 

    1. Is not a historical drama
    2. Is not set on our Earth
    3. Is fantasy

    So no, there was no “back then” because we can’t go “back” to a “then” that never existed.  And as far as I can find, Westeros is ~12,000 years old.  You wanna make a historically accurate drama set on earth in 10,000 BC, be my guest, but it ain’t gonna look like Game of Thrones.

    So when all of the writers for the TV show keep putting rape scenes in the script, they aren’t thinking “yeah, this would’ve been realistic,” they’re thinking “haha let’s see how much I can torture women on this show.”  If the logic you’re using doesn’t even hold up to the thing you’re discussing, you’ve really gotta examine why you’re so enthusiastic about defending rape as a plot device.

    Maybe if high fantasy writers and creators weren’t all fucking hacks who’ve been riding JRRT’s dick for the last fifty years and insist on making every single god damn fantasy world they create a boring retread of Middle Earth based on the same three hundred year span of time in four countries of Western Europe they wouldn’t all have to rely on the same garbage logic to justify their garbage misogyny. 

    You know, they could deny that they find rape sexy, and they might even believe their own denials.  But the point is that they clearly don’t think of rape as something distasteful enough and disgusting enough to omit.

    And you know what, I’m not even gonna insist on the dysentery.  Just this: if you’re going to include rape on the basis of historical accuracy, none of your female characters are allowed to have shaved legs or armpits.  And all of your characters have to have terrible teeth – yellowed and worn and crooked, because nobody’s getting braces or regular visits to the dentist – with at least a few teeth blackened or missing for every character over the age of thirty.

    Of course, if your reaction to blackened teeth and hairy armpits is “ugh, no, sure it might be historically accurate but it’s gross, nobody’s going to want to watch that" and you don’t have the exact same reaction to rape, you might want to think about why that is.

  • rudegyalchina:

    proxac:

    actionables:

    Because news cameras are apparently only there if looting and protests are mentioned, here are some shots from the march for peace in Charleston yesterday. In case you missed it, thousands marched to Ravenel Bridge, holding hands in prayer and unity. Yet this doesn’t make news, but an interview with the killer’s friend does.
    all photos from Twitter

    this is what people need to see

    PUT THIS ON EVERYONE’S DASH , FB , TTL ECT

  • Children Don’t Ruin Women’s Careers-Husbands Do, Harvard Study Finds

    Children Don’t Ruin Women’s Careers-Husbands Do, Harvard Study Finds

    goodbyesocialconstructs:

    A
    new study of Harvard Business School graduates from HBS’s Robin Ely and
    Colleen Ammerman and Hunter College sociologist Pamela Stone shows that
    high-achieving women are not meeting the career goals they set for
    themselves in their 20s. It’s not because they’re “opting out” of the
    workforce when they have kids, but because they’re allowing their
    partners’ careers to take precedence over their own.

    The study’s
    authors interviewed 25,000 men and women who graduated from Harvard
    Business School over the past several decades. The male graduates were
    much more likely to be in senior management positions and have more
    responsibility and more direct reports than their female peers. But why?
    It’s not because women are leaving the workforce en masse. The authors
    found, definitively, that the “opt-out” explanation is a myth. Among Gen
    X and baby boomers they surveyed, only 11 percent of women left the
    workforce to be full-time moms. That figure is lower for women of
    colour—only 7 percent stopped working. The vast majority (74 percent) of
    Gen Xers, women who are currently 32-48 and in the prime of their
    child-rearing years, work full time, an average of 52 hours a week.

    But
    while these women are still working, they are also making more
    unexpected sacrifices than their male classmates are. When they
    graduated, more than half of male HBS grads said they expected their
    careers would take precedence over their partners’. Only 7 percent of
    Gen X women and 3 percent of baby boomer women said they expected their
    careers to take precedence. Here’s what they did expect: The majority of
    women said they assumed they would have egalitarian marriages in which
    both spouses’ careers were taken equally seriously.

    A lot of
    those women were wrong.     About 40 percent of Gen X and boomer women said
    their spouses’ careers took priority over theirs, while only about 20
    percent of them had planned on their careers taking a back seat. Compare
    that with the men: More than 70 percent of Gen X and boomer men say
    their careers are more important than their wives’. When you look at
    child care responsibilities, the numbers are starker. A full 86 percent
    of Gen X and boomer men said their wives take primary responsibility for
    child care, and the women agree: 65 percent of Gen X women and 72
    percent of boomer women—all HBS grads, most of whom work—say they’re the
    ones who do most of the child care in their relationships.

    Of
    course, marital arrangements aren’t the only force holding women back.
    Part of the reason these women aren’t advancing at the same rate as
    their male counterparts is that after they have kids, they get
    “mommy-tracked.”     In many ways, they’re not considered management
    candidates anymore. “They may have been stigmatized for taking advantage
    of flex options or reduced schedules, passed over for high-profile
    assignments, or removed from projects they once led,” the authors note.
    Other studies support these findings, as they have shown that there is a
    real, substantial motherhood penalty that involves lower pay and fewer
    promotions for women with kids, because employers assume they will be
    less dedicated to their jobs     (as do, we now know, their husbands).

    But
    the personal piece of the female achievement gap puzzle is important,
    and it’s something that’s very difficult to shift. The study’s authors
    note that while millennial HBS grads are a little more egalitarian than
    their older peers, half of the youngest men still assume that their
    careers will take precedence, and two-thirds of them assume their
    spouses will do the majority of child care.

    Important info, but I hate the way this was written.

    “It’s not because they’re “opting out” of the
    workforce when they have kids, but because they’re allowing their
    partners’ careers to take precedence over their own.    “ but because they have self-indulgent patriarchal male partners that encourage and expect them to give up their career dreams in favor of catering to their families, something the men themselves are too self-entitled and lazy to do.

    Also big shoutout to all those millennial male HBS grads that are still patriarchal and entitled. And by shoutout I mean fuck you.

  • transrants:

    gravekat:

    softkats:

    pizzatomb:

    aside from being cissexist the whole XX = female and XY = male thing is Straight-Up Wrong

    AFAB people can have XO, XXX, XXXX and XY chromosomes while AMAB people have have XXYY, XYY, and XX chromosomes and since the majority of the population never has their karyotype examined,  they’ll never know that they have one of these chromosomal quirks unless that specific combination has associated symptoms, and not all of them do. you could literally have one of the aforementioned combinations without even knowing it and meanwhile you’re insisting that all AFAB people are XX and that anyone else who has this must also be female

    we could also talk about how hormonal patterns for XX persons can naturally and biologically mirror that of a typical XY person, or vis versa, which gives rise to things like androgen insensitivity disorder. here u have it, folks, an whole group of intersex people who have XY chromosomes and testicles and vulva and vagina, all grown naturally, all at the same time. 

    the number of people who are intersex mirror the number of people who are born with red hair, but no one goes around trying to say that red isn’t a natural hair colour just because the phenotype doesn’t manifest in the majority of the population. 

    #hmmmm it’s almost like the gender binary is a piece of shit

    seriously consider the bold if you are aggressively upholding the ridiculously flawed theory that is the sex and gender binary.

  • medievalpoc:

    searlait:

    hathor-aroha:

    lifeisliterallylimited:

    I AM SO BLOODY FURIOUS:

    Three-year-old Aboriginal girl left in tears after she is racially abused by a grown woman for wearing her favourite Frozen costume

    • Samara Muir, 3, had dressed up as Queen Elsa from Disney film Frozen
    • The little girl wore the outfit to a Disney event in Melbourne
    • She was racially abused by a mother and her two daughters
    • ‘Black is ugly’ the three-year-old was told by one of the other girls
    • Samara was so upset she would not go to her Aboriginal dance class
    • When her mother asked why she replied: ‘It’s because I’m black’

    This is why people who seem to need “proof from history” that WE NEED MORE DIVERSE REPRESENTATION IN FANTASY piss me off so much. People of color get harassed at Renaissance Faires, at SCA events, in online fandoms, at LARPs, and events based entirely on fantasy and fairy tale stories, because supposedly “there were no PoC back then”.

    That’s a lie, and it’s wrapped in another lie.

    Despite that fact that Disney’s Frozen has nothing to do with actual history, people still have asked me over and over again about it. Because they want “proof” that it should have been more diverse. 

    I really don’t get why anyone would need any more “proof” than the fact that a 3 year old child was told “Black is ugly” at a Disney event because she was dressed as Elsa.

    I really wonder if things would change if Frozen really had been based on media from historical Denmark, as a lot of the mistaken “historical accuracy” police had claimed it was. Maybe then people would have seen someone in Frozen, maybe even Elsa, who looked like Karel Van Mander III’s Queen Persina (from a series for the Royal Court in the 1600s):

    image
    image

    [The models for this series were Black people living in Denmark in the 1600s, if anyone was wondering.]

    But it’s not set in historical Denmark, or Norway, or “somewhere in Scandinavia”. It’s set in a 100% make-believe world with magic ice powers and sentient snowmen. 

    And in THIS world, the one we all live in, racist grown women attack toddlers for dressing up as characters who don’t look like them, when there are practically NO characters who DO look like them. 

    WE NEED DIVERSE REPRESENTATION.

    And we need it now.

  • Dinosaurs

    seananmcguire:

    animatedamerican:

    seananmcguire:

    animatedamerican:

    patrickat:

    Scientists say we’ll be able to clone actual dinosaurs by 2020. GoP says science knows nothing; we’ll be able to put an actual dinosaur in the White House as soon as January 2017.

    BUT LET’S NOT.

    BUT LET’S.

    allow me to clarify my position

    METAPHORICAL DINOSAUR IN THE WHITE HOUSE: LET’S NOT

    ACTUAL LITERAL FIRST PET DINOSAUR IN THE WHITE HOUSE: YES LET’S

    Ahhhhhhh yes okay.  I was going RAPTOR PRESIDENT, and let me tell you, I am ALL ABOUT raptor president’s State of the Union.

    “RARAHGHGHGHRHBFHGGGHHG!!!!”
    “OH GOD RAPTOR PRESIDENT JUST ATE CONGRESS!”

    …new representatives are elected, raptor president is fed, everyone wins.