skyasimaru

[skyasimaru]

crazy how much your life can improve if you just Move Somewhere Else

[skyasimaru]

Love this art. Loved this fic. Loved doing the podfic with Djapchan ;)

Lumberzira From @summerofspock ’s “Under Construction”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23641006/chapters/56741293

:3

[skyasimaru]

same with artists. same with any creative or academic field, really. if you're relying on ai to do the work for you, you're not using it, or your mind, or what talents you have, correctly.

[skyasimaru]

on survival

-// @aridante // @orivu // @buzzkillgirls // ? // ? // richard siken// @cemeterything // moomin, tove jansson// @disenchanted-killjoy // isn't that enough, shawn mendes// @ prettytheyswag on twitter// @ coletyumuch on twitter// ? // ? // bird by bird, anne lamott// undertale// @strawberrycircuits

[skyasimaru]

Did you know that horses are still used for logging? Not just as a way to keep traditional handicrafts alive, but because horses are genuinely better at some jobs than machines?

Horses are much gentler on sensitive ecosystems, they're more flexible in rocky terrain, and they don't topple over on a hillside.

They can enter dense forests and drag out one specific tree without damaging the other trees and without compacting or eroding the soil.

They also run on hay instead of gas or electricity. Horses don't pollute the ecosystem with either oil leaks, gas stench, or noise.

In conclusion, draft horses are awesome c:

[skyasimaru]

kids deserve so much more respect and it turns out that saying that is a great way to locate the horrible people in any community <3

[skyasimaru]

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL

“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”

[skyasimaru]

knight/lord ships are like. what if i would die for you. what if i wanted you to live for me. what if i wanted to touch you but could only be satisfied with being near you. what if i could touch you but only through the safety of our gloves. what if i couldn’t stop thinking about you right next to me. what if i bloodied my hands for you and never looked back at the wreckage. what then

[skyasimaru]

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

[skyasimaru]

Revolutionary parenting hack:

If your child is in the middle of some activity and clearly enjoying it (and wasn't supposed to be doing something else instead), DO NOT interrupt them and have them do chores that will "only take 5 minutes or so!"

You haven't asked them to do anything before they got out the Legos, started reading a chapter of their book or painting the complicated picture, or began playing their video game.

As a result of being repeatedly interrupted, they will learn that their presence in public space of the household=availability to do chores, so they will make themselves scarce so you can't find them and order them around. They will also become suspicious of your efforts to engage with them as they play, as they've learned that these pleasantries are a prelude to "Take out the trash", or "move your boots and vacuum the entryway, there's dirt everywhere ".

"But I need my children to help me around the house!", I hear you cry. I understand. Children should not be treated like royalty and left to their own devices 24/7.

An alternative is to give the kids a clearly delineated chore chart and stick to it, resisting the urge to add anything to it. There are some chores that are easier and quicker with two people, though. A (in my opinion) even better option is to divide the child's day into "on-duty" and "off-duty " time. When they're on-duty, you can interrupt them as before, but you have *consulted with your child beforehand * and they understand that during this time they can relax, but they must be ready to jump in and lend a hand.

That way they won't start trying to level up in their video game or break out the clay and make stuff. When they are off-duty, you leave them alone and their only responsibilities are to clean up whatever mess they make at the end of this time.

Also, if they are tearing around the house or whining about being bored, don't make them do chores so they will "have something to do"; this could make the child conflate extra chores with punishment for whining and make them reluctant to help out when you randomly tell them to at other times because they might think they're being punished but they have NO IDEA WHAT THEY DID. And IMO children should see chores as things everyone has to do no matter what, not punishments.

I may seem unqualified to offer parenting advice as I have no kids, but I was talking with my dad today and he said: "I wish you didn't hide from us in your room so much, but every time your mom walked by she'd give you a chore to do, so I can't blame you for that." A kid who hides in their room to play has an entirely different relationship to the family than the child who sprawls on the livingroom floor and excitedly describes the city they are building out of Legos.

And today, in times of Covid I play a complicated game of hide-and-seek with my mother as I try to do my online coding homework and apply for jobs. I am now attempting to turn my bedroom into my own tiny office because if I work in our home office, she'll find me and go "I can't attach this file to my email," and so on.

Children *have* to obey their parents when they are young. But true respect and honoring collective responsibilities is stronger than forced obedience. If you demonstrate to your children that you respect them and their time, they will reciprocate.

[skyasimaru]

thinking about when my professor told me how the boards of companies/orgs/etc. will sometimes hire on a CEO/whatever who they know will basically take a chainsaw to existing infrastructure, let them fuck as much shit up as possible, and then promptly fire them as soon as they've accomplished what the board wanted them to do. then they can point the finger at that guy & look like they're the heroes and the problem is resolved because he's gone now. and they still get to keep all the changes they wanted that nobody else did.

anyway I think it's fun and all to watch the two most divorced men on the planet publicly divorce each other. and also. maybe keep that in mind, is all.

[skyasimaru]

One of my history professors in college used to say "Follow the money to get to the truth," and he was right. Additional helpful analysis questions: Who benefits from this information? Who paid for the research? What's their usual agenda? Who conducted the poll and how many people were *actually* polled? (5 out of 10 voters still comes across, statistically, as "50% of voters," using the same language as 50 out of 100 or 500 out of 1000 with considerably less representation.) What were the questions ON the poll? (if it only allows 'yes' or 'no' answers, there's no room for anything specific that might 'skew the data' in a way questioners do not want.) How old is the information? How was the other party interviewed? Were they fairly depicted? (Look at the lighting, the wardrobe selection, the questions given. Were they given time to answer, or were they under pressure from external forces? (ie, is this a casual interview in an office, or are they being yelled at on the street? Are they being cut off constantly, or do they have time to answer in a sit-down?) What is the attitude of the interviewer? (ie, are they hostile, dead serious, calm, or casually joking - even to the point of belittlement?) Did the interviewer angle for a specific answer, using a specific and loaded question, rather than let the person speak freely? When an organization wants to make another organization (or person, or situation, or law) look bad, they will do anything in their power to set up the cards (and camera angle, lighting, wardrobe, environment, questions, polls, etc) to Make them look BAD, even if they are not. Conversely, they will do the same to make a bad situation/person/organization look good, if they stand to benefit from it ("Our cooperate sponsors~"). Pay close attention to how an interview is conducted, how each side is portrayed/set up in a debate, and above all: who is paying for it. Question everything. And follow the money.

[skyasimaru]

Before the computing era, ILM was the master of oil matte painting, making audiences believe that some of the sets in the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy were real when they weren’t. They were the work of geniuses like Chris Evans, Michael Pangrazio, Frank Ordaz, Harrison Ellenshaw and Ralph McQuarrie ! Forever thank you, to their handmade art and the work of their colleagues, that made us dream of impossible worlds and fantastic places across Earth and the Universe.

There are more background paintings on this article, featuring comments by the masters/artists themselves ! 

Some of the following pieces were made by other artists 2:

[skyasimaru]

If we wanted to engage in nuance (lol, lmao) on the "are audiobooks reading" debate, we really do need to bring literacy, and especially blind literacy, into the conversation.

Because, yes, listening to a story and reading a story use mostly the same parts of the brain. Yes, listening to the audiobook counts as "having read" a book. Yes, oral storytelling has a long, glorious tradition and many cultures maintained their histories through oral history or oral + art history, having never developed a true written language, and their oral stories and histories are just as valid and rich as written literature.

We still can't call listening in the absence of reading "literacy."

The term literacy needs to stay restricted to the written word, to the ability to access and engage with written texts, because we need to be able to talk about illiteracy. We need to be able to identify when a society is failing to teach children to read, and if we start saying that listening to stories is literacy, we lose the ability to describe those systemic failures.

Blind folks have been knee-deep in this debate for a long time. Schools struggle to provide resources to teach students Braille and enforcing the teaching of Braille to low-vision and blind children is a constant uphill battle. A school tried to argue that one girl didn't need to learn Braille because she could read 96-point font. Go check what that is. The new prevalence of audiobooks and TTS is a huge threat to Braille literacy because it provides institutions with another excuse to not provide Braille education or Braille texts.

That matters. Braille-literate blind and low-vision people have a 90% employment rate. For those who don't know Braille, it's 30%. Braille literacy is linked to higher academic success in all fields.

Moving outside the world of Braille, literacy of any kind matters. Being able to read text has a massive impact on a person's ability to access information, education, and employment. Being able to talk about the inability to read text matters, because that's how we're able to hold systems accountable.

So, yes, audiobooks should count as reading. But, no, they should not count as literacy.

[skyasimaru]

Can i say something problematique for terminally online millenials and people born after that point: I think the seeming lack of ability or willingness to call one another and chat on the phone with friends unprompted or out of the blue contributes to whatever hellish loneliness everyone is talking about feeling these days. Say what you want about boomers and old people but those guys mostly knew how to keep in touch with each other. Idk man call a bitch today

[skyasimaru]

[skyasimaru]

I spotted a reply to one of my posts:

And my knee-jerk response was "no, you should hear my friends talk about their lives--"

And it made me remember something.

Back in high school, my IB class did a lock-in-- where the group of students gets locked into one part of the school overnight on a weekend-- and after junk food and video games lost their appeal, we got to talking.

Only I didn't really know anything about almost any of them. They were all friendly enough, but I kept to myself for the most part, so we didn't have much to talk about once standard small talk ran out.

So I asked one of the other people sitting with me: "what's your story?"

Your life story.

And he told me. Sixteen years or so condensed into maybe a half hour. And it was the most fascinating life I could have imagined: the places he'd been, the things he'd done, the experiences that defined him. It boggled my mind.

When he finished and turned the question around to me, I thought mine sounded really boring in comparison, but he listened open-mouthed to the entire thing. Other kids were gathering around us by now, listening in. And when I finished mine, I turned to another one of them and asked the question to them.

And just like before, my mind was blown. A completely different life, completely different focal points, defining experiences, goals the likes of which were deserving of an anime. And the same happened with the next person we asked, and the next.

By the time each one of us had finished telling their story, it was time to go home for the morning. The video games had been abandoned hours ago. None of us had slept. We were too caught up in each other's lives.

All of which is to say:

Thank you. I do lead a very interesting life.

So do you.