iamamagiciannotawizard - Tumblr blog

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

oh fuck *falls back into old habits* *screen fades to black* *level loading* TIP: your belief that you are incapable of changing for the better will become a self fulfilling prophecy if left unchallenged

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

Se atormenta una vecina.

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

Even more freedom and liberal democracy

Freedom and liberal democracy for ya innit [11 Mar 24]

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

Complacency is the enemy of study. We cannot really learn anything until we rid ourselves of complacency. Our attitude towards ourselves should be "to be insatiable in learning" and towards others "to be tireless in teaching".

-Mao, "The Role of the Communist Party of China in the National War" (October 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 210.

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

There's a really non-obvious consequence to all those "smart" appliances out there. Your average corporation lasts less than ten years before it's acquired, goes bankrupt, or is no longer doing the thing it first started out doing. However, all those internet-of-things gadgets still need someone to be paying the server bill, otherwise half of the features go "poof."

This is great for me: I get cheap appliances, tools, construction robots, and pseudo-sentient war machines because most of their functionality required a now-nonexistent web service to be working. For instance, this oven I pulled out of a ditch works perfectly fine to cook food, but the "Turkey Mode" that makes an obnoxious gobbling sound on Thanksgiving Day no longer activates on its own.

Not everything is as lucky. Lots of gadgets are just totally useless, so they get turned into other things. A lobotomized robot lawnmower quickly became a regular ol' human-operated lawnmower with the attachment of a Princess Auto two-stroke engine and a very, very long wood pole. And then there's the stuff that just gets plain weird.

A few weeks ago, I got a new microwave from the "gettin' spot." It was due to be recycled, to be turned into some other microwave. I figured it would still work perfectly fine, so I brought it home, plugged it in, and got ready to heat up some Pizza Pockets. Nothing doing: the screen had only one functional "app" remaining.

On its flickering high-dollar OLED screen, I saw the words "death prediction date." And, clicking on it, the microwave began to read out an entirely plausible date and cause for my personal demise. For a couple days after, guests to my house were also amazed by the microwave's chillingly reasonable projection of their inevitable fatal accident or terminal illness.

I'll never know why the Guangzhou Champion Home Appliance Company imbued the microwave with such an eerie memento mori, but I am grateful for it. The whole experience taught me that life is short, far too short to listen to some snarky-ass microwave that won't even cook a Pizza Pocket. If it's so smart, maybe it should have guessed that I was going to drag it behind my truck on the highway until the transformer – with its delicious, copper-rich windings – fell out.

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

Nós, latino-americanos

Somos todos irmãos mas não porque tenhamos a mesma mãe e o mesmo pai: temos é o mesmo parceiro que nos trai. Somos todos irmãos não porque dividamos o mesmo teto e a mesma mesa: divisamos a mesma espada sobre nossa cabeça.

Somos todos irmãos não porque tenhamos o mesmo braço, o mesmo sobrenome: temos um mesmo trajeto de sanha e fome. Somos todos irmãos não porque seja o mesmo sangue que no corpo levamos: o que é o mesmo é o modo como o derramamos.

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Nosotros, los latinoamericanos

Somos todos hermanos pero no porque tengamos la misma madre y el mismo padre tenemos el mismo compañero que nos traiciona. Somos todos hermanos no porque compartamos el mismo techo y la misma mesa: divisamos la misma espada sobre nuestra cabeza.

Somos todos hermanos no porque tengamos el mismo brazo o el mismo apellido: tenemos un mismo trayecto de saña y hambre. Somos todos hermanos no porque sea la misma sangre que en el cuerpo llevamos: Lo que es lo mismo es el modo como la derramamos.

(Ferreira Gullar)

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

Photos of Palestinians performing Dabke at Dar El Tifel school in Jerusalem by National Geographic foreign editorial staff writer and photographer Thomas Abercrombie (1974-1975).

[iamamagiciannotawizard]

this is one of my favorite reddit posts of all time. for the love of god stop being annoying in my notes trying to be the next "isthe___videocute"