ajora

[ajora]

When I was in ninth grade I wanted to challenge what I saw as a very stupid dress code policy (not being allowed to wear spikes regardless of the size or sharpness of the spikes). My dad said to me, “What is your objective?”

He said it over and over. I contemplated that. I wanted to change an unfair dress code. What did I stand to gain? What did I stand to lose? If what I really wanted was to change the dress code, what would be my most effective potential approach? (He also gave me Discourses on the Fall of Rome by Titus Livius, Machiavelli’s magnum opus. Of course he’d already given me The Prince, Five Rings, and The Art of War.)

I ultimately printed out that phrase, coated it in Mod Podge, and clipped it to my bathroom mirror so I would look at it and think about it every day.

What is your objective?

Forget about how you feel. Ask yourself, what do you want to see happen? And then ask, how can you make it happen? Who needs to agree with you? Who has the power to implement this change? What are the points where you have leverage over them? If you use that leverage now, will you impair your ability to use it in the future? Getting what you want is about effectiveness. It is not about being an alpha or a sigma or whatever other bullshit the men’s right whiners are on about now. You won’t find any MRA talking points in Musashi, because they are not relevant.

I had no clear leverage on the dress code issue. My parents were not on the PTA; neither were any of my friend’s parents who liked me. The teachers did not care about this. Ultimately I just wore what I wanted, my patent leather collar from Hot Topic with large but flattened spikes, and I had guessed correctly—the teachers also did not care enough to discipline me.

I often see people on tumblr, mostly the very young, flail around in discourse. They don’t have an objective. They don’t know what they want to achieve, and they have never thought about strategizing and interpersonal effectiveness. No one can get everything they want by being an asshole. You must be able to work with other people, and that includes smiling when you hate them.

Read Machiavelli. Start with The Prince, but then move on to Discourses. Read Musashi’s Five Rings. Read The Art of War. They’re classics for a reason. They can’t cover all situations, but they can do more for how you think about strategizing than anything you’re getting in middle school and high school curricula.

Don’t vote third party unless you can tell me not only what your objective is but also why this action stands a meaningful chance of accomplishing it. Otherwise, back up and approach your strategy from a new angle. I don’t care how angry you are with Biden right now. He knows about it, and he is both trying to do something and not doing enough. I care about what will happen to millions of people if we have another Trump presidency. Look up Ross Perot, and learn from our past. Find your objective. If it is to stop the genocide in Palestine now, call your elected representatives now. They don’t care about emails; they care about phone calls, because they live in the past. I know this because I shadowed a lobbyist, because knowing how power works is critical to using it.

How do you think I have gotten two clinics to start including gender care in their planning?

Start small. Chip away. Keep working. Find your leverage; figure out how and when to effectively use it. Choose your battles, so that you can concentrate on the battle at hand instead of wasting your resources in many directions. Learn from the accumulated wisdom of people who spent their lives learning by doing, by making mistakes, by watching the mistakes of their enemies.

Don’t be a dickhead. Be smarter than I was at 14. Ask yourself: what is your objective?

[ajora]

[ajora]

The White Ship Disaster

The White Ship was a Nef that sank on its way from Normandy to England on 25 November 1120. Now you might think that this is a normal shipwreck, but it is not that simple. This accident was the presumed cause of a civil war ( The Anarchy) in England that lasted for many years. Even before this event, there were already disputes about the succession to the throne and the claims of Normandy. As a result, the only legitimate son, William Ætheling, was confirmed by Henry I as successor and ruler of both territories, so he and his father had been in Paris. Now it was time to return to England and the company of several hundred people waited for good winds. A ship owner put his white ship, a commercial nef, at their disposal for this purpose. William boarded the ship with 300 noblemen and other gentlemen.

Henry I and his descendants,with the sinking of White ship, Liber legum antiquorum regum; Cotton Claudius D. ii, f. 45v.  (x)

According to the contemporary chronicler Ordericus Vitalis, two of William’s illegitimate half-siblings, Maud and Richard FitzRoy, also boarded the ship. Henry I took another ship, which also sailed first. The Nef followed in the night but ran onto a rock as it was leaving Barfleur harbour and sank in short order. Only one man, a butcher named Bérold or Guéroult from Rouen, could be rescued the next morning and report what had happened. This was recorded by the chronicler Ordericus Vitalis who gives an exact account of what has happend. According to this, William had already served plenty of wine on land and thus everyone was drunk, including the crew. That was the moment were Stephen of Blois, a nephew of Henry left the ship.

Detail of the royal family tree from Henry I to Henry II, showing King Henry I, his wife Matilda of Scotland, their children William Adelin and Matilda. Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings: Royal MS 14 B V, Membrane 5

When the ship finally sailed, a noblewoman is said to have ordered the king’s to be caught up. In their eagerness, no one paid attention to the well-known Quilleboeuf rock in front of the harbour exit, which crushed two planks on the starboard side. Water entered the ship and it sank very quickly. William Ætheling first managed to save himself in a small boat, but when his half-sister Maud called for help, he turned back. Now other drowning men tried to climb onto the boat, causing it to capsize. Except for the aforementioned butcher, all those present died.

King Henry I and the White Ship in a series of images of English kings preceding Peter of Langtoft’s Chronicle, Royal 20 A. ii, f. 6v. (x)

This misfortune brought with it unforeseen consequences, for now Henry I, who had many children but only one legitimate heir, was once again without an heir. His wife Edith of Scotland had already died two years earlier. This meant that he had to marry again. Unfortunately, the marriage between him and Adelheid of Louvain remained childless and so, after his death in 1135, his daughter Empress Maud (Mathilde as she was actually called) widow of Henry V, the Holy Roman Emperor, would claim the throne. As she was considered unsuitable as a wife, Stephen of Blois, we remember the nephew of Henry I, was able to make his claim valid. An almost 20-year war of succession broke out between Stephen’s and Matilda’s parties, which the empress’s son Henry FitzEmpress finally won. As Henry II, he ascended the English throne in 1154. He united England and the independent Duchy of Brittany with the French Duchies of Normandy and Aquitaine as well as the Counties of Maine, Touraine, Anjou and Poitou to form the Angevin Empire and established the centuries-long rule of the House of Plantagenet over England.

Why did the ship sink ?

Apparently, and if contemporary sources are to be believed, it was due to the wine that was generously given out. Which ensured that even the crew were so drunk that they forgot to follow the fine line and sailed against it. (Reminiscent of the Titanic and the iceberg, but with the royal family) Strangely, Stephen of Blois left the ship beforehand. Some few now say that he planned it all and that he was actually the one who let the wine flow and also made sure that more flowed during the voyage.

Interestingly, historian Victoria Chandler (“The Wreck of the White Ship: A Mass Murder Revealed?”, The Final argument) has found that someone else was involved in the disaster, a steward named Pirou. But no one knows how he survived, whether he was on board or not. Was he the one who served the wine on behalf of Blois? These are questions that still cannot be answered today, but leave a lot of room for speculation. Because if Blois was really involved, then it was not an accident but a mass murder.

Besides Chandler’s book, I also recommend Charles Spencer’s - The White Ship and Judith A. Green, Henry I: King of England and Duke of Normandy. If you want to read more about this case.

[ajora]

Very Silly Concept: a show called "Accessibility Nightmares" but it's structured exactly like Kitchen Nightmares. An accessibility specialist goes to different establishments and helps them make their businesses more accessible.

The accessibility specialist asks why the door at the top of the small set of stairs has a wheelchair symbol on it. The owner replies that's the accessible bathroom. The camera zooms in on the specialist as they process this information.

A customer with a service dog comes in to a restaurant. The hostess tells them they don't allow dogs. The accessibly specialist looks over at the hostess like

And there are web accessibility episodes too. The accessibility specialist stares at the white text on the light pink background of the home page like

The specialist asks why not a single product picture has alt text, and the business owner says "Well I mean, it's makeup, why would a blind person be shopping for makeup?" The specialist just

The specialist asks the web designer how a screen reader user is supposed to complete the captcha portion of the password reset process when there is no audio alternative. The designer admits they don't know.

[ajora]

Can you please elaborate on the Stephen Colbert RPF thing. This is a judgment free zone I’m just deathly curious

Ah yes well you see Stephen Colbert used to play a parody of a Fox News pundit on a show called The Colbert Report (American news satire program popular in the late 00s/early 10s). The character was explicitly a closeted gay man who was driven to conservatism due to his own insecurity/internalized homophobia. He had a homoerotic relationship with Jon Stewart whom he pretended to hate but had several romantic moments with.

When their shows ended they wrote a soft epilogue for their fictionalized selves where they retire to a cabin in the woods together and it’s implied they’re married now. The most beautiful self-written rpf of all time.

It was a beautiful slow burn self-written rpf that unfolded over, like, 10 years they worked together? It started as a joke but ended up being a genuine canon part of the fictionalized Stephen Colbert? I’m not joking.

[ajora]

[ajora]

Postcard issued by the Amusement Control Committee of the New York World's Fair of 1939

via NYPL Digital Collections

[ajora]

As the impending heat death of the internet, our library of alexandria, inches ever closer, here are some resources that will teach you everything you need to know about digital archiving.

Digital preservation is the only process that can and will preserve everything you love that (currently) only exists in the digital realm. It’s not 100% guaranteed to work, but let’s be real—your own painstakingly, personally, manually cultivated digital archive is all you’ll have left of the images, blogs, recipes, videos, fics, fanzines, games, servers, forums, articles, peer-reviewed scientific studies, “illegal” musicals and even the friends you found online, when the internet is completely gone.

And yes, you can trust me on this, because I've had to help family friends create a personal digital archive of their own. She chose to pay for archiving software in the end, but that's not important.

The basics of/anticipating potential roadblocks to adequate digital preservation:

What to expect from the quality of your digital archive in the future:

Also! Fun fact: you can download the files that make up your entire tumblr blog!

Any additional resources you have or know of would be greatly appreciated, so please don't hesitate to share them.

Please spread this post so that it finds the people who need it the most right now.

[ajora]

I’m reading that new memoir about working at Facebook,”Careless People,” and it’s just fucking insane.

At one point Facebook wanted to be an international hub for organ donation. The “Lean In” lady asked why she couldn’t go down to Mexico and buy a kidney if her four year old needs one. This is literally on p.57. What the fuck else is going to be in this book if that is on page 57

[ajora]

One of my favorite historical tidbits is that Arab traders, for centuries, fooled Europeans into thinking cinnamon came from a rare, vicious and fearsome cinnamon bird.

The belief was so prevalent, in fact, that the mythical cinnamon bird shows up in the writings of Herodotus and Aristotle, all the way into medieval European manuscripts where it’s illustrated in all its fierce, cinnamony glory:

Pliny the Elder expressed skepticism of the bird in his writings, rightly assuming that it was a tale invented to keep control on the trade and prices by reducing competition, but the belief was already so widespread that it persisted in many areas into the early 1300’s.

[ajora]

I meant to draw this back when I did this other doll comic as another side, to show a doll that had been cared for instead of abused, but somehow I wasn't able to finish it till like 10 minutes ago, anyway I did it *confetti*

[ajora]

People have written a lot of touchy-feely pieces on this subject but I thought I’d get right to the heart of the matter

[ajora]

just some lads, being fellows

[ajora]

Predicting atomic structures proves useful in energy and sustainability

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed a new approach that combines generative artificial intelligence (AI) and first-principles simulations to predict three-dimensional atomic structures of highly complex materials. This research highlights LLNL's efforts in advancing machine learning for materials science research and supporting the Lab's mission to develop innovative technological solutions for energy and sustainability. The study, recently published in Machine Learning: Science and Technology, represents a potential leap forward in the application of AI for materials characterization and inverse design. The approach uses X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy. Accurately determining atomic structures from spectroscopic data has long posed a challenge, particularly for complex systems, such as shapeless materials.

Read more.

[ajora]

Researchers have discovered that leaky blood vessels, together with a hyperactive immune system may be the underlying cause of brain fog in people with long covid. They suggest their discovery is important for the understanding of brain fog and cognitive decline – difficulty with thinking, memory or concentration – seen in some people with the condition. It is hoped the findings will help with the development of treatments in the future.

To Summarize:

Long Covid sufferers experience symptoms like forgetfulness and concentration issues due to leakiness in brain blood vessels, according to research findings.

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin and FutureNeuro confirm that Long Covid patients with brain fog have disrupted blood vessels in their brains, making the neurological symptoms measurable.

Blood vessel leakage in the brain, along with an overactive immune system, may be the key drivers of brain fog in Long Covid patients, leading to potential changes in understanding and treating post-viral conditions.

I can't find a single right-wing news source covering this.