rainofaugustsith

[rainofaugustsith]

Something about the idea that voting for president only matters if you live in a swing state, and that all the people in blue states or red states can indulge themselves in principled nonparticipation because the outcomes are preordained, strikes me as akin to playing with fire.

Is it really coherent to say "both sides are awful, write in Mickey Mouse or burn your ballot or just stay home and get drunk, unless you live in Pennsylvania, in which case maybe consider taking one for the team and compromising yourself by voting for the lesser evil?" Is that really the message that will lead to a preferable outcome?

What it sounds like to me is a sign that 1) you take your local electorate for granted, and 2) you see avoiding the worst case scenario as somebody else's problem.

I remember when Florida was a swing state. I also remember when Pennsylvania wasn't.

[rainofaugustsith]

[rainofaugustsith]

okay.

#endwalker spoilers #oh yes this one

[rainofaugustsith]

nobuddy feels like they have a sharp attention span these days, right? and we all just click “agree on terms of service” because its hard to love yourself sometimes, well

enter Terms of Service, Didn’t Read: a website and a browser addon that streamlines the terms of service of many popular web services to be read by the tech sunday drivers.

It’s graded from A (great) to E (awful) and if you have the addon you have access to the info about the website on your bar

[rainofaugustsith]

my suffering is over

#ffxiv #whoo!

[rainofaugustsith]

About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

[rainofaugustsith]

Constantine realized he could be the head of the Roman state and the head of the church, combining the wealth and consolidating the power.

Converting all your prisoners of war to Christianity was an easy way to gain money and power.

By contrast, Juadaism requires a jewish mother. Christians just wanted the power and the money and would convert anyone.

The violence never ended. Dark Ages, Crusades, Inquisitions, Missionaries, colonizers, monarchs.

#note that many streams of Judaism accept children of Jewish fathers including Reform Reconstructionist Humanistic #and some Conservative rabbis quietly do as well #but the point remains that Jews aren't out there forcibly converting #and if someone wants to convert to Judaism the answer is generally “you sure? REALLY sure?” followed by a long complex process

[rainofaugustsith]

Which is Your Black Cat?

[rainofaugustsith]

#the man who wrote the pivotal account The Men with the Pink Triangle used an alias #because even when the book was written in the 1970s it wasn't safe to be a gay man where he was

[rainofaugustsith]

This may be old speculation; I didn't start playing until just before the last patches for Shadowbringers were released. But I was rewatching the Shadowbringers trailer & suddenly realized...Zenos had to survive Ghimlyt Dark. And didn't in the original timeline.

In the trailer, it shows the WoL killing Zenos, and it looks like that fight, using that cracked mask to suggest Zenos in someone else's body while showing him in his own so we know for certain who it is. And that's not what happened. *That* was the moment G'raha first significantly altered the timelines, by pulling the WoL out of their body for a conversation, which of course seemed like the absolute worst timing. Instead, I think it was the opposite, G'raha chose that moment intentionally. Because without Zenos, Black Rose was deployed which was what devastated the original timeline

There may have been nudges to the timeline earlier when he grabbed the Scions, but we know those weren't intentional. People like Estinien and Gaius were trying to stop Black Rose production, but they weren't enough. We know they weren't. It was only stopped because Zenos survived to kill Varis, reclaim his body, & stop Black Rose, whatever his twisted reasoning for doing so. So his survival was an important turning point.

Either way, I think that fight at the beginning of the trailer represented the moment the WoL killed Zenos in the original time line. It has no resemblance to what ultimately happened to Zenos in our timeline.

Zenos deciding to destroy the production of Black Rose might even be a bizarre instance of Azem's gift working even on an enemy who had begun to think of the wol as a friend in a twisted way, whatever the WoL thought of him. Certainly Azem's gift best accounts for his surprise appearance in U-T later.

#shadowbringers spoilers #endwalker spoilers #yes #I also think Azem's gift summons who is needed at the time and that isn't necessarily always a friend/ally

[rainofaugustsith]

Oh my god I’m not sorry but if you’re freaking out over Project 2025 as this “doomsday plan” that could bring fascism to America I’ve got news for you. That shit didn’t just come out of nowhere and will just go away if we “just vote blue”.

The far-right’s “plans” to take away reproductive healthcare, bolster racist police systems, get rid of queer rights, throw out civil rights history, etc. etc. are not some big sudden plans that will be enacted if a republican president gets sworn in in 2025. These are things the far-right HAS BEEN DOING FOR YEARS and will KEEP TRYING TO DO even if the republicans lose the 2024 election.

This isn’t to say that Project 2025 isn’t scary or eye-opening, but now that you have your eyes opened, look around. Activists have been screaming about these issues for years and how they aren’t just solved by hoping you get a “less bad” person in the president seat.

Pay attention to your local/state governments, your communities, and the voices of people that are part of groups most affected by what’s been happening (activists for the disabled, BIPOC, queer, etc.). Change won’t happen overnight, but it never does; it’s a process.

THIS IS WHY VOTING AND PARTICIPATING IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT DECISIONS ANY WAY YOU CAN IS STILL IMPORTANT BEYOND JUST VOTING FOR PRESIDENT.

(BTW if you think this doesn’t affect you because you don’t live in a ‘red state’, think again. Systemic problems can exist nationwide, whether you notice them or not.)

#judges friends JUDGES #if judges are on your ballot research those and don't skip those votes #judges at all levels from local to federal are important #as well as local elections for things like city council school boards #because those are often the people enacting right wing policies on your local city/county government level #SO VOTING BLUE IS IMPORTANT BUT AT ALL LEVELS

[rainofaugustsith]

government is trying to ban tiktok meanwhile millions of poor and disabled americans are about to completely lose their internet access at the end of april because congress wont renew funding for the affordable connectivity program

hell fucking world

[rainofaugustsith]

BEHOLD

smiling bat :)

based on this guy ^ my favorite little guy from British Library Harley MS 3244 f 55v

[rainofaugustsith]

I don’t care whether you like rooster teeth or not the idea of deleting 21 years of media should be incredibly concerning

[rainofaugustsith]

Don Wilson:

"I have noticed a significant increase in general laxity about PPE since COVID masking has been dropped. A significant % of OR staff (esp anesthesia & RTs) not bothering to mask inside actual OR even when sterile fields are open & set up.

Nurses inside OR generally much more consistent (they directly handle & set up sterile equipment).

I’ve seen unmasked anesthesiologists & RTs for emergency CS & gyne cases… I don’t get it. We mask to prevent contamination of open surgical wounds. Just because COVID mask mandates are over doesn’t mean INSIDE an operating room is a mask free zone.

Used to be that it was unthinkable to be unmasked inside an active OR. Even in the hallways during active OR time. It’s a sad commentary on the impact of the antimask stupidity spilling over to areas where it can impact quality & safety of the patient care environment.

I’m just one person who chooses to be fastidious about masking inside the hospital, I can’t take on the entire system. But it’s discouraging to see & I wonder how many patients go on to have nosocomial surgical infections because of relaxed cultures around masking now."

https://x.com/heiltsuk_paleo/status/1780326358314614784

[rainofaugustsith]

Meanwhile

#endwalker spoilers #ffxiv

[rainofaugustsith]