magialrie

[magialrie]

“Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated—with one another; with the rainy, sleety weather; with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. “Folks,” he said, “I know you’ve had a rough day and you’re frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here’s what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight—just leave ‘em with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I’ll open the window and throw your troubles in the water. Sound good?”

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who’d been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other’s existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?

Oh, he was serious.

At the next stop—just as promised—the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up—but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.

We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it’s extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don’t know where to find it.

But what if you are the light? What if you’re the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?

That’s what this bus driver taught me—that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy “influencer.” He was a bus driver—one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.

When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can’t personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can’t control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other’s name. How we behave matters because within human society everything is contagious—sadness and anger, yes, but also patience and generosity. Which means we all have more influence than we realize.

No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated—one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.“

–Elizabeth Gilbert

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[magialrie]

Don’t let Chrome’s big redesign distract you from the fact that Chrome’s invasive new ad platform, ridiculously branded the “Privacy Sandbox,” is also getting a widespread rollout in Chrome today. If you haven’t been following this, this feature will track the web pages you visit and generate a list of advertising topics that it will share with web pages whenever they ask, and it’s built directly into the Chrome browser. It’s been in the news previously as “FLoC” and then the “Topics API,” and despite widespread opposition from just about every non-advertiser in the world, Google owns Chrome and is one of the world’s biggest advertising companies, so this is being railroaded into the production builds.

Use Firefox.

[magialrie]

Ok, I know I should not be doomscrolling, but just... You know the meme of the dog sitting in a burning room? I've been feeling like that but internally screaming on the inside. God it hasn't even been two weeks and feels like I'm being dragged to the pits of hell when I'm not doing anything wrong.

[magialrie]

There's an EU initiative going on right now that essentially boils down to wanting to force videogame publishers with paid games and/or games with paid elements such as DLC, expansions and microtransactions to leave said games in a playable state after they end support, or in simpler terms, make them stop killing games.

A "playable state" would be something like an offline mode for previously always online titles, or the ability for people to host their own servers where reasonably possible just to name some examples.

I don't think I need to tell anyone that having something you paid for being taken from you is bad, which is a thing that routinely happens with live service and other always online games with a notable recent example being The Crew which is now permanently unplayable.

Any EU citizen is eligible to sign the initiative, but only once and if you mess up that's it. You can find it here. (https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000007_en)

Even if you're not European or you signed it already, you can share this initiative with anyone who is, even if they don't care about videogames specifically because this needs a million signatures and there is different thresholds that need to be met for each EU country for their votes to even count and could also be a precedent for other similar practices like when Sony removed a bunch of Discovery TV content people paid for.

[magialrie]

hello Tumblr user,

petting you petting you petting you petting you I'm petting you petting you

[magialrie]

Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”. 

[magialrie]

Fabio Viale, marble sculpture.

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AIR FRYER FRENCH FRIES

Follow for recipes

Is this how you roll?

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I've been thinking about this amazing pattern for days....

BEHOLD

rainbow croak army

there is a black one that looks like an orca and one color of leather bag

[magialrie]

being a writer leads to a genuinely helpful but also very stupid kind of mindfulness where you'll be having a sobbing breakdown or the worst anxiety attack of your life and think "okay, I really need to pay attention to how this feels. so I can incorporate it into my fanfiction."

[magialrie]

A very useful thread on Bluesky:

(There is a lot more. Rather than give you all the images, I've copied the full text below.)

Meredith Rose‬ ‪@mrose.ink‬ November 8, 2024

This is not going to be a repeat of 2016-2020. It will be better, it will be worse, but most of all it will be different. Here are things I want every single person to keep in mind as we head into round 2 of a Trump admin.

My credentials: I’m a queer female public interest attorney working on tech policy in DC. I’ve been doing this for a decade--longer than some, not as long as others. I had to navigate three different administrations, as well as Congress, regulatory agencies, courts, and the advocacy world.

FIRST: don’t let despair override your media literacy.

The left has grifters, just like every other movement. If you’re able and compelled to donate, give to orgs with established track records. Avoid giving to individuals, especially anyone who emerges overnight with a one-weird-trick “plan.”

The left is not immune to misinformation, and everyone—EVERYONE—falls for it sometimes, present company included. There is no shame in it. When (not if) it happens to you, you should acknowledge it; delete or retract the post to reduce the spread; and move on.

If a source consistently shares half-truths or outright misinformation, it is not trustworthy, no matter how much “their heart is in the right place.” Unfollow and move on.

Prediction, analysis, and reporting are three fundamentally different things. Learn to identify them for what they are. Reject attempts by amateur “analysts” to predict the future. They know as much as you do.

Real subject matter experts know and acknowledge their limits. They’re also (usually) hesitant to try and predict the future. The best frame their predictions in terms of a range of possible outcomes. Subject matter experts may also disagree with one another! It happens!

SECOND: What we know for sure about how the Trump, how he operates, and how that will impact the next four years.

Trump is a narcissist who avoids reading and doesn’t care about details. He cannot be persuaded by argument or logic; he’s moved mostly by flattery, and will agree with the last person who flattered him. He can and will upend his own administration’s work without warning, often by tweet.

As a result, most policy experts—even those "on his side"—dread him taking an interest in their field. Ask any Republican staffer who worked in Congress during the last administration, and most of them will confirm that their greatest fear was Trump tweeting about anything related to their work.

As such, people who are serious about their work will do everything to make it as invisible and boring-seeming as possible. This is the policy equivalent of defensive camouflage. Lots of “normie” work will continue in silence. (The lion’s share of tech policy ends up in this bucket.)

If you have a niche issue that you care about, now is a great time to donate to orgs that work on it. Lots of money will be funneled to big legacy orgs working on headline issues: ACLU, climate change orgs, etc. Consider sending your donations where they matter most: local, niche, established.

Trump runs his cabinet like the Apprentice. He thrives on chaos and making people compete for his approval. Not only does he not reward collaboration between his subordinates, he actively undermines it.

Moreover, everyone who works with him knows that they’re vulnerable to being thrown under the bus at a moment’s notice, for any reason (or for no reason at all). His cabinet is going to be scorpions in a bottle. They will not be able to coordinate, for good or ill.

One scorpion can still do a lot of horrific damage. But large scale inter-agency coordination is unlikely, particularly after the first few months, by which point he will likely (prediction warning!) have gone through a handful of cabinet secretaries already.

FINALLY: The view from inside civil society heading into 2025.

In 2016, Trump was a largely unknown quantity. The left and establishment right alike wasted a lot of time trying to read tea leaves and make sense of this guy, because he was completely outside the realm of what anyone had dealt with. That’s not happening now.

He did us a favor by broadcasting his plans in advance (aka Project 2025). Civil society has spent the last 2.5 years strategizing around it. We’re not starting off flat-footed.

The Biden admin did a good amount to future-proof its own achievements. Folks can speak to their own areas of expertise, but clean energy and CHIPS and Science Act (investing in domestic semiconductor production) have benefitted from huge sunk investments. That money’s not getting clawed back.

OVERALL TAKE-AWAYS:

It's going to suck. But civil society and the political left have some advantages we didn't have last time. We know him, we know his angles, and we know who he's bringing in--none of which we had in 2016.

We'll get through this. It will be grim, but we'll get through it.

John Cutting‬ ‪@johncutting.bsky.social‬

Thanks Meredith. I really valued your analysis over the past few years, and I think this is a reasonable, actionable framework to think about the upcoming storm

Meredith Rose‬ ‪@mrose.ink‬

I really cannot overstate how much time was (necessarily) wasted in 2017 trying to figure out this guy and his influences. The fact that he's not only a known quantity, but ran the most over-studied administration in this nation's recent history, makes this a very different game.

John Cutting‬ ‪@johncutting.bsky.social‬

I bet we can weaponize his narcissism. Let's say some ghoul starts making progress with a mass deportation effort, if we start calling that ghoul that "shadow president" en masse, Trump would fire him in right away and appoint Hulk Hogan or something

‪Meredith Rose‬ ‪@mrose.ink‬

This is exactly why I don't think Musk will last very long. Trump is very clear that he's the only one in the room allowed to have an ego or any kind of brand name.

[magialrie]

Project 2025 ain't gonna roll out all at once. So what we're gonna wanna do is make passing each individual part of it as difficult as possible, so there's less to undo once we finally get this country back on the rails.

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I have a thing to get to but had to get this out real quick

[magialrie]

from one chronically anxious person to another: the world is not going to go up in flames. What happens will be more slow, more bureaucratic, more boring. There is no catastrophe to end all catastrophes, no rapture, no sudden end. You can't give into the call of the void, because there is no void. So you just have to do the work to make tomorrow a better place, anyway. Because that's how it gets better.