FOR LARRY WALTERS, WHO DREAMED SINCE HE WAS A CHILD OF USING BALLOONS TO FLY; WHO IN 1982 SPEND FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS OF HIS TRUCK-DRIVING DELIVERYMAN SALARY TO BUY SUPPLIES, INCLUDING ONE LAWN CHAIR, FORTY-TWO BALLOONS, AND A HELIUM TANK, WHICH HE USED TO INFLATE THE BALLOONS, ARRANGING THEM IN A RING AROUND THE LAWN CHAIR, A STURDY ALUMINUM TYPE FROM SEARS, IN WHICH HE LAUNCHED HIMSELF ALONG WITH HIS PELLET GUN AND WATER JUGS A THOUSAND FEET A MINUTE INTO THE CALIFORNIA SKY, WITH THE GOAL OF CLEARING THE SAN GABRIEL MOUNTAINS TO REACH THE MOJAVE; WHO AGAINST ALL ODDS FLEW, FROM A BACKYARD IN SAN PEDRO TO LONG BEACH, AN IMPERFECT MAN ON AN IMPERFECT FLIGHT PATH, WHO BROUGHT HIS CAMERA BUT DIDN’T USE IT; WHO, UPON HIS ARREST BY THE LONG BEACH POLICE, WAS QUOTED AS SAYING A MAN CAN’T JUST SIT AROUND…..

FUCK YES LARRY YOU DID IT BABY

Amelia Gray - FOR LARRY

I’m facing the apocalypse with The Rock, Ezio Auditore, and Darrell Hammond. I’ll take it.

You?

Vintage Sun & Earth Valentine via: sienna42 on eBay

Brian Eno on why he pissed in ‘Fountain,’ Marcel Duchamp’s famous urinal, in 1990 (source)

sometimes I get so angry thinking about ‘The Imitation Game’ that I have to go in a little ‘upset big tantrum room’ in my head for a calm down

like, Benisnatch Cumberque played the same character he’s always plays as an asshole genius and we were all supposed to be okay with it, but it’s basically character slander

at different parts of the movie Turing is described as ‘arrogant, “inhuman,” “narcissistic,” and even “a monster,” in the film he goes against those around him and is shown to periodically ignore and belittle his colleagues

And. I. Am. So. Angry.

Alan Turing was described by his friends and people that knew him as “intensely shy and kindly”, he was said to “inspire loyalty and affection among those who appreciated his unusual gifts” and was “unfailingly generous with his time and expertise, especially toward younger recruits”

He was kind, he was kind, HE WAS KIND, he was kind

he was kind and geeky and awkward and gay, I don’t care if the whole of society doesn’t find that compelling, I don’t care if we don’t value kindness as an attribute in men, he deserved to be loved and respected as he was, not as we wish he was

I am so sorry Alan Turing, I am so sorry your story was not told with care and thoughtfulness, I am so sorry you didn’t get to be shown to be deeply in love with the men you loved, I am sorry your great and terrible tragedy was never unfolded as a kind and brilliant man abused by a horrible homophobic system

You are a hero that turned the tides of history like no other and I am so sorry

Writer tries to use the internet without relying on Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, or Apple. Writer struggles. A lot. Not because she can’t stop googling things, but because Google is integrated with everything, and anything it isn’t is hooked into is partnered with at least one of the other four. 

For an example, she details the long process of figuring out how to send a large file without relying on the Google iCloud or Amazon Web Services:

My Gmail alternatives—ProtonMail and Riseup—tell me the file is too large; they tap out at 25 MB. Google Drive and Dropbox aren’t options, Dropbox because it’s hosted by Amazon’s AWS and relies on Google for sign-in. Other file-sharing sites also rely on the tech giants for web hosting services.

…O’Brien directs me first to Send.Firefox.com, an encrypted file-sharing service operated by Mozilla. But… it uses the Google Cloud, so it won’t load. O’Brien then sends me to Share.Riseup.net, a file-sharing service from the same radical tech collective that is hosting my personal email, but it only works for files up to 50 MB.

O’Brien’s last suggestion is Onionshare, a tool for sharing files privately via the “dark web,” i.e. the part of the web that’s not crawled by Google and requires the Tor browser to get to. I know this one actually. My friend Micah Lee, a technologist for the Intercept, made it. Unfortunately, when I go to Onionshare.org to download it, the website won’t load. 

“Hah, yes,” emails Micah when I ask about it. “Right now it’s hosted by AWS.”

The troubling implications of tech monopolies on our private data are discussed, as well as potential solutions that don’t sound very appealing at all:

An uncomfortable idea I keep coming up against this week is that, if we want to get away from monopolies and surveillance economies, we might need to rethink the assumption that everything on the internet should be free.

So when I try to create a fourth folder in ProtonMail to organize my email and it tells me that I need to upgrade from a free to a premium account to do so, I decide to fork over 48 euros (about $50) for the year. In return, I get a 5 GB email account that doesn’t have its contents scanned and monetized.

However, I’m well aware that not everyone has $50 dollars to spare for something that they can easily get for “free,” so if that’s the way things go, the rich will have privacy online and the poor (and most vulnerable) will have their data exploited.

Unpopular opinion, maybe, but the narrative of “Here’s what you can do as an individual to fight climate change” isn’t useless.

It has its place, and that’s mainly in the mental health realm. I’m a super anxious person. I get depressed easily. Articles talking about little steps I can take to reduce my carbon footprint give me tangible ways I can contribute to the solution, and help give me a sense of control over the whole mess, however illusionary it may be.

The framing of the narrative is the problem, not the narrative itself; guilt-tripping people never works. Pointing out “if you’re feeling scared, here’s some steps you can take to be part of the process” is way, WAY better. And the more steps you include, the more myriad ways you can take some ownership of the process and go “I am NOT powerless you motherfuck,” the better. Not everyone can take all of the listed steps and that’s COMPLETELY understandable. You gotta take care of you, first. But the more we list, the more accessible ways we come up with to give climate change the finger in our everyday lives, and to refuse to let the fear win.

By all means, go after the corporations. They’re the big fuckers here and I am totally on board with that. But if you’re feeling helpless and hopeless? Maybe take a look at one of those “how can I help” articles and pick a few little things to implement.

It’s all about taking care of your mental health!

“We had dorm rooms next to each other freshman year.  We mainly just played a lot of board games: Risk, Scrabble, Scattergories, a Trivial Pursuit game from the 1980’s, which everyone sucked at.  But we became best friends, and the next year decided to get a house together.  That’s when things started to get tense.  We began sitting closer together.  We were touching more.  We’d play with each other’s hands.  Never holding hands, but playing with hands.  And we’d even fall asleep in the same bed together.  There was a time that she told me goodnight, and I swear I felt her brush my lips, but by the time I opened my eyes she was out of the room.  Neither of us had ever dated a woman.  And I was terrified to try anything.  We were such good friends.  There was always this fear that if I voiced the desire, it would ruin our friendship.  But one night we were out for drinks at a hotel where Al Capone used to stay.  I was feeling pretty drunk, so I leaned over and said: ‘Sometimes I feel like I want to kiss you.’  And she replied: ‘Sometimes I do too.’  I didn’t say a thing.  I wasn’t even sure that I’d heard her correctly.  I just kept thinking: ‘Oh my God, it’s happening.  It’s happening.’  Then once we finished our drinks, and started walking home, I stopped her in front of a bridge.  I said: ‘Shall we do it here?’  It was December 12th, 2002.  And even though we got married five years ago, that’s the day we celebrate as our anniversary.”

Gail Brodholt’s Metroland (via here)

climate change is good for business

My brain: New story idea!! Must write now!

Me: okay… what’s the plot..?

My brain: Hmm, plot? No, no, no, none of that here, my good friend, my good sir, my good ma’am, but may I offer you an overall general Vibe, an aesthetic if you will, a vague feeling to convey, a-

Fairytale AU (Sheith has so many underlying Snow White tones so this had to be done.)

PSA:

lyft is partnering with united way to give free rides (2 rides, up to $25/per ride) to warming centers through friday 2/1 with code MSPJAYDEN19

also available in chicago, detroit, madison and mke