The images of Dylan Roof in custody provided a stark contrast between how police treat black and white Americans. Compare those photos to others of late, where officers reacted with violence and murder to black people. It’s injustice plain as day — and these few incidents are just scratching the surface.
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.
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.
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
Adulting powers activate (I’m a little concerned about the Minions box)
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.
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
Is not a historical drama
Is not set on our Earth
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.
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
