@thegsphere-blog / thegsphere-blog.tumblr.com
happy trans day of visibility, have a pigeon :]
i think we can relate to them a lot. there is no small number of people that will truly hate us just for existing, but remember that pigeons and doves are really the same thing and one is not less worthy of respect than the other. and there are also still people out there that love you more than anything! youll find your flock eventually
was reminded of that youtube channel that records footage of that bridge that scalps trucks today. one of the fascinating developments that's happened since i last heard about it is that, in one of their many attempts to stop the trucks from being can-opened, they installed a traffic light that detects when a vehicle that's over the allowed height is coming and turns red so the driver can stop and hopefully notice the signage all around that's screaming "YOUR VEHICLE IS OVERHEIGHT TURN AROUND" and avoid an accident. However as a result sometimes drivers see the light turning yellow and IMMEDIATELY start flooring it to avoid having to stop, ensuring that the roof of their truck just gets fucking annihilated instantly. Really beautiful stuff you should check it out
the comments have me in tears
It DOES have a sign. It turns on when it detects something too tall for the bridge. It even flashes. And the traffic lights will go red to get people to stop when it detects an over height vehicle so they read the signs. (note this lovely example where the lights are red, because the truck thought it was better than the lights)
every time I see this post I've forgotten how clearly signposted the canopener bridge is, and every time it hits me like a truck (hitting the canopener bridge and getting the top of its trailer ripped asunder)
I see this post all the time and I'm so confused. Most people throughout history were busier than your average resident of a developed country is now. My primary reaction to reading about the past since I was a child has been "I'm glad I don't live then, I'm too weak for that, I could not do that much work all the time."
In the past things took longer to do but they often required a waiting period. You had to chop wood, put it in your stove, and light it, but it took a few hours for it to get hot enough for baking and then another hour for the bread to fully cook. History books will say things like "It took 4 hours to make a loaf of bread" but they don't mention that you only had to do actual work for a fraction of that time and the rest could be devoted to other tasks or relaxing for a while
Employee workload has doubled or tripled because of modern technology. It makes things faster but also creates less downtime which employers have filled with more responsibilities. You can do more work in a 10 minute period if all the files are on the computer but in the olden days you got to take a short walk to the filing cabinet and let your mind wander while you thumbed through folders, which means a modern 10 minutes of work is more mentally exhausting. The amount of work one employee has to do today used to be split between 2 or 3 people. We lost those moments of downtime we used to get by having to do things the slow way
there's a really funny 3d printing controversy going on btw.
if you don't know, there's a very popular 3d printing model out there called "benchy". this is used for benchmarking your 3d printer because it's a difficult print and will help test it out.
this is so widely used that people make their own little versions of it, remixing the 3d model to make benchy look cooler and stuff. however, a new company owns the benchy license. they are sending copyright takedowns to all those who wrongfully uploaded the benchy model.
of course, this is pissing off the 3d printing community greatly. everyone loved benchy and have used it for years. so someone on reddit decided to make a new model that is designed as a 3d printing stress test. one that works a lot like benchy, and people are freely able to edit it as they please. you know what they called it?
That’s actually a brilliant idea, even from a strict effectiveness standpoint.
Pity they got shut down.
Some examples:
Just goes to show how much data facebook/insta collect about you that gets sent to advertisers. Also facebook responded by effectively saying ‘yes we collect the data but we dont allow advertisers to say that they’re using this data’ after trying to accuse Signal of pulling a ‘PR stunt’. Facebook is so scummy.
people in the usa are so uninformed/misinformed/propagandized about socialist countries that even knowing like, basic facts about the electoral system of marxist leninist countries feels like being privy to some kind of forbidden knowledge.
most of my ride-or-die mutuals probably already know about al of this, but for any of the non-tankies who follow me who might not be aware:
in most marxist-leninist countries, the way the elections work is that the citizens elect representatives to the local council/assembly, who in turn elect from amongst themselves a delegate to go to the council/assembly at the next level up, all the way up to the national assembly, which in turn elects from itself a president/chairman. in depending on the country and time period these selections by the assembly might also be put to a confirmation vote by the public, to either confirm or veto the assembly's selection, but this is largely a formality.
let's use cuba as an example, since it's a small country and consequently it's system of nested assemblies has a lot less layers and is much easier to keep track of. community meetings are held where between two and eight candidates are put forward for a single seat to the local municipal assembly. the municipal assemblies, in turn, elects from themselves a representative to go to the national assembly. prospective representatives to the national assembly are also put forward by various trade unions and other mass organizations which represent students, the elderly, non-working mothers, etc, these proposed candidates are also voted on by the municipal assembly. the national assembly then in turn elects from itself the 31 member council of state, which in turn elects the president. these representatives elected by the municipal and national council are then put to a confirmation vote by the whole citizenry, but again, this is largely a formality. there also used to be provincial assembly that was above the municipal assembly and below the national assembly, but this was removed in order to streamline the system and give a more direct path from the democratic input at the municipal election level to the national assembly.
now, i'm sure there are any number of critiques you could make, or ways this system might be improved- but anti-communists by and large aren't interested in critiquing the cuban electoral system (or any other marxist-leninist electoral system) as it actually exists. they completely ignore the multi-candidate municipal elections, ignore the electoral process by which the municipal assemblies select the delegates to the national assembly, and instead laser focus on the mere formality confirmation vote on the representatives the municipal assemblies elected, to paint a narrative that in communist countries you can only choose one candidate. you know the drill, "in communist countries, 'elections' have become a sham, a farce! you have no choice, but to vote 'YES' for your evil dictator overlord- under communism, so-called 'elections' are merely a method of control and humiliation, meant to enforce total submission to a system you have no say in!" here's just one example of that kind of rhetoric: [link]
the very existence of multi-candidate municipal elections utterly debunks this of course, people in communist countries choose between candidates in elections all the time. even if you completely reject the "bottom-up" method of leninist democracy, and you think that the elections by the municipal assembly of representative to the nstional assembly have no meaningful democratic content, (if this is you, just out of curiosity, what's your opinion on the electoral college? or the supreme court?) it's pretty hard to deny that the competitive races in the municipal/local level put at least some democratic input into the system.
now, i can already hear what some of the anti-communists who lurk my blog because they hate-follow me are thinking. "multi-candidate municipal elections? in cuba????? where the fuck are you getting this dogshit. let me guess, you read it on the website of some tankie political party, and like the gullible moron you are, you immediately believed it. pathetic. find any source, *any* source at all that isn't overtly communist that corroborates this claim."
this is a genuinely good point! i did originally learn about this from overtly communist sources, and if those were the only sources claiming this, it really would cast some pretty serious doubt on the veracity of these claims. so, can i find anti-communist sources that corroborate this?
yes.
from the congressional research service:
Although National Assembly members were directly elected for the first time in February 1993, only a single slate of candidates was offered. Direct elections for the National Assembly were again held in January 1998 and January 2003, but voters again were not offered a choice of candidates. In contrast, at the local level elections for municipal elections are competitive, with from two to eight candidates. To be elected, the candidate must receive more than half of the votes cast. As a result, runoff elections between the two top candidates are common. In 2007, the process of nominating candidates for the local municipal assemblies took place in September 2007. Municipal elections were held October 21, 2007 (with runoffs on October 28), and over 15,000 local officials were chosen. The new municipal assemblies then met on December 2, 2007 to nominate candidates for provincial assemblies and for the National Assembly of People’s Power.
[link]
given that this is an anti-communist source, they are of course playing up the confirmation vote in the usual ways (ouagh! aough! only one candidate! no choice!) but given that this document is intended to be viewed by congress, and isn't really intended for the general public, it has to at least passingly address actual reality at least a little and can't spend it's whole time rolling in propaganda slop.
or check this out, from fox fucking news:
Municipal assemblies also nominate candidates for half the representatives on provincial assemblies. The provincial assemblies then nominate candidates for half the representatives for the National Assembly, which elects Cuba's ruling Council of State, which in turn elects the president. The other half of the candidates for the municipal and provincial assemblies are selected by a government electoral commission, assuring continued Communist Party control. Once all of the candidates are nominated, voters choose among them in general elections. Every municipality is divided into block-level voting districts. The two-month process of electing municipal assembly representatives begins when residents gather in an empty lot or at a school to nominate neighbors as candidates. Each district picks at least two candidates — more populous ones have more. The top winners of show-of-hands votes at the meetings became the official candidates put before voters in Sunday's election. In all, there are 27,000 candidates to fill 12,589 seats on municipal assemblies for 2½-year terms.
and this is in an article about overt anti-communists successfully getting nominated as candidates for the municipal assembly! (they lost their election though lol bye bozos) [link]
they're trying to spin it, of course- the part about the "government electoral commission" is misleading and inaccurate (as previously stated, the other half of candidates are put forward by mass organizations such as trade unions, which are then voted on by the municipal assembly. the electoral commission simply approves the selections made by the municipal assembly.) fox news, engaging in anti-communist disinfo? unheard of!
but even here enough of the truth is shining through the lies to put to bed the idea that there's no element of choice in the cuban electoral system.
and what's crazy is that all of this info is just out there for anyone who cares to look. but a lot of people are simply too incurious to bother, they were told that the Enemy Country is a totalitarian regime without any democracy and it just never occurs to them to check into it. the US ruling class barely even needs to try to hide the truth, because most people in the US are too lazy and apathetic to look for it.
I appreciate this video a lot--people don't realize how important it is to start slow if you're trying to come back from a completely sedentary lifestyle, and they get really hurt as a result. Straining your muscles too much, too suddenly can land you in the E.R. and the wrong joint injury can permanently affect your mobility, so please start with absolute basics and easy stretches!
Have you ever looked closely at a car windshield?
The edge of the glass is painted where it is glued to the car but it has these small dots between the clear and painted glass.
These are there for a reason. When the sun hits the glass the painted areas and the clear areas will absorb heat at different rates. This causes the glass to expand and contract differently putting stress on the glass.
These dots help the glass to warm up more evenly over a larger area so the glass does not suffer stress that could cause it to spontaneously explode.
Fun fact: the Tesla cybertruck doesn’t have these.
Yes, the glass will spontaneously crack or explode in the sun.
(grabs you by the shoulders) you have to make room for new experiences in your life. you have to go through the unpleasant work of leaving your comfort zone, even if just for a few minutes at a time. because if you don't, your brain will trick you into stagnation. you will start to believe that the world can barely fit you in it. but that's not true. it's the opposite way around. you can fit the whole word inside of you. your task is only this: to welcome it with open arms
Love the tags!
ah lads not the stagnation i've been tricked again
BEST TAG EVER:
The only jump scare anybody’s going to see here. :)
