Thoughts, Rants, and Other Stuff

John Green's tumblr: code-red-arthur: festusthehappydragon: darkstoriesofthenorth:...

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:08:49 -0400

John Green's tumblr: code-red-arthur: festusthehappydragon: darkstoriesofthenorth:...:

festusthehappydragon:

darkstoriesofthenorth:

for-one-shining-moment:

subliminal-mind-duck:

John Green’s car breaks down

The Fault in Our Cars

John Green gets locked in a pub

The Fault in Our Bars

John Green writes a strongly…

John Green writes a study of Libyan dictators

The Fault in Muammar

thebrainscoop: By request. This

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:16:21 -0400

thebrainscoop:

By request.

This

Dear Tumblr,I would like just the text of what I copy and paste to show up. Not all the formating...

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:32:18 -0400

Dear Tumblr,

I would like just the text of what I copy and paste to show up. Not all the formating complete with colors and pictures flayed across the text box in which I’m typing.

Best Wishes
Me

John Green's tumblr: The Commencement Address

Sun, 12 May 2013 02:15:59 -0400

John Green's tumblr: The Commencement Address:

fishingboatproceeds:

Some people have asked to read the commencement address I delivered this morning to the 2013 graduates of Butler University. So here it is.

My own commencement speaker, who shall remain nameless, began with a lame joke about how these speeches only come in two varieties: Short and bad. This…

That Damn Feminist TEDx Talk.

Sat, 11 May 2013 05:10:56 -0400

I’ve seen this video on every social media site I’ve been to lately; generally posted by women who think this is a game changing talk that will make men fall into the lap of feminism with adoring eyes and a zealotry not seen since the crusades. GOD WILLS IT!

So in an attempt to collect my thoughts on this latest absolutely sexist talk I’m just going to make this post and link to it. The following may not be safe for work due to language. (I say may because I haven’t finished writing it yet).

First a little basic background. Feminism is a movement started to gain gender equality for women. On this I do not have an issue. Women are most definitely a step behind the male culture in our nation and the world over. It is something that needs to be addressed. I support that. What I don’t support is the demonizing of men in pursuit of this goal nor do I support the hypocritical attitude of many of its followers, Dr. Katz included.

Dr. Katz starts off his talk thanking all the women who have come before him, saying that he might get a lot of credit but it was all due to the women who came before in this field. I call bullshit right out of the gate. He thanks the women who started a movement to give themselves equal rights but not Edison who was the father of the light bulb and thus lit the stage he was on. He failed to thank Columbus for the monetized discovery of the Americas or the people who built the building he was standing in. He did not thank the inventor of the English language or his elementary teacher for teaching how to read and write. It is faux modesty. He wrote the words, he was standing up there giving the speech, and if he gets praise it should be well earned. Everything is built off of something else. If he truly has a sense of thankfulness, he is most selective in his praise of those who have come before making sure to extol the virtues of those he claims to help. However, even though this seems like faux praise, I will give it to him because I guess that was what he was there to talk about.

My next problem with this TEDx talk was Dr. Katz immediate launch into trying to make feminists a gender neutral movement and claim they aren’t demonizing men. Well I gave it a listen and I was optimistic at the onset. He explained (I guess to some of the less intelligent) that gender does not mean women, race does not mean African-American, and sexual orientation does not mean homosexual. Well good on ya mate! So we are actually going to talk about gender issues right? Nope. I’m afraid not. More men bashing.

You see in every instance or abstract or example he gave in his speech, it was always the male who was in the wrong. Domestic violence was always the result of a man beating a woman or child. There was no mention of a woman beating a woman or a woman beating a child. There was no mention of a man beating a man. Why? Because men are just there to be the bad guy and are never the victim. Women are always the victim.

Still the sexism continues on. When talking about making it socially unacceptable to abuse people the example was guys sitting around playing poker (“not a woman in site” because homosexuals don’t play poker) and a disparaging remark about women (never a man) is made. *facepalm* By now you see a pattern.

And the pattern does continue on with the example of coaches in sports abusing their power I thought “Finally, some pressure on female coaches too!” until he started with the masculine pronouns to describe the coach. WTF! To make matters worse he continues on talking about mandating collegiate domestic abuse classes FOR STUDENT ATHLETES AND COACHES! No, he doesn’t want it to be mandatory for all college students, just the overwhelmingly male side of colleges and universities. Why? Because men are the bad guys never the victim and women are always the victim and never the bad guy.

So why do I not join the feminist band wagon? I’m a guy and I’m the bad guy. It never fails that my gender is to blame. Now I’m all for equal rights and opportunities for women, just like I’m for equal rights and opportunities for men. But I cannot align myself with a movement that shows no love or understanding for the male half of the population or issues affecting men such as family court cases and domestic abuse while casting men as the perpetual bad guy. He might say that feminism isn’t about “man-hating” and that might be true. But I’ve yet to hear a single feminist talk about women being anything more than a victim of a man which, by Dr. Katz’s own admission and illustration, is using language to make men the bad guy.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvSfeCRxe8

Post Script: I feel I need to emphasize something I was accused of earlier in a talk railing against this. I am not a MRA. I think MRAs, as a whole, are dumb. Of the crap they talk about 98% of it is “we hate women who won’t shut up and get back in the kitchen”. However 2% is something that needs looking into and that 2% is important. But once again I cannot, in good faith, call out feminist for being hypocritical for hating men and side with MRA’s for the equal yet opposite problem.

Why this social liberal hates Obamacare

Wed, 08 May 2013 17:18:00 -0400

There seems to be a gross misunderstanding on what Obamacare does. There are some things I like, but the majority of it is horrible. For the brief synopsis, it is a bill that hurts the poor while protecting the fiscal side of the medical industry.

The good it does; It requires medical insurance agencies to provide medical coverage for preexisting conditions. This is great news for people with cancer, CF, Alzheimer’s, MS, PTSD, clinical depression, ADHD, HIV/AIDS, etc. Likewise it forces those in the medical field to have open and honest conversations with people on options available to them (the right wing has predictability declared these death panels as they include things like DNR’s)

The bad is too numerous to mention. The poor having hours cut to come in below the line for mandated health care. Those same people are required by law to have health coverage or they are fined. Those people who are working minimum wage, less than thirty hours a week, and struggling to support themselves and/or a family… are forced to buy a medical insurance package they can’t afford because it is often 25-50% of their monthly income. They are not eligible for federal (and most often state) health care. Meanwhile, the small businessman is being destroyed by this mandated healthcare. Some are even electing to pay the fine as it is cheaper than paying the partial health care dues. It is now a major financial burden to move to the place where you employ more than 50 people which is a drain on the economy as those with over fifty in their employ are most often unskilled manufacturing jobs which, especially in rough economic times, we need. This isn’t what “might” happen, this is what IS happening.

The merits and flaws of the health care reform act are plain as day. They don’t need some catchy meme or poor fiction writer to extol its virtues and denounce it’s flaws. What it needs is an informed and aware public willing to take a bit of time out of their day from texting and facebooking and tweeting to read a law that affects every person in the country. What it needs is for the spin doctors and fear mongerers to shut up long enough for responsible journalist to rely important facts that are not crouched in a political agenda.

If you are uninformed on what this bill does and how it affects you, the media is to blame, politicians are to blame, and YOU are to blame. A good tip, if you think it gives free government health care to even a single person, you are wrong and need to inform yourself.

*climbs off of soap box*
*end rant*

Just lol’d

Tue, 07 May 2013 04:32:11 -0400

Just lol’d

DFTBA News: Books, Books, Books.

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:31:26 -0400

DFTBA News: Books, Books, Books.:

dftbanews:

Books, Books, Books. @elizziebooks @realjohngreen @jk_rowling @penguinusa @JRRTolkien

Somebody asked me today why I read so much (I read ~65 books per year). This was a simple two part answer to me. 1) Because all good authors read and 2) books are important.

Then that same person asked me the…

I love the blogs from dftba news but never do I reblog. Tumblr does not lend itself well to conversations on subjects so the only real purpose I can find to reblogging is either really liking something or QFT (quoted for truth). This is a QFT moment. While not as a voracious reader as Peeta, this is why I read, and why it is important.

Jason Collins

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:17:12 -0400

dftbanews:

Sports on DFTBA News? Yep! check it out!! http://dftbanews.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/jason-collins/

Lets talk about Jason Collins, a Boston Celtics basketball player, and the fact that he is the first professional athlete to come out openly gay while still an active player and how badly some people are trying to spin it.

Let me be clear, This ISa big…

View Post

Well that SI article was a great read. It is also really sad that I’m so excited to see what happens next like it is some kind of serial drama :-S

edwardspoonhands: coolstoryrob: meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerlin:...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:15:36 -0400

edwardspoonhands:

coolstoryrob:

meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerlin:

serionsly:

voyagevisuelle:

This a Moonmelon, scientifically knows as asidus. This fruit grows in some parts of Japan, and is known for its vibrant blue color. What you probably don’t know about this fruit is that it can switch flavors after you eat it. Everything sour will taste sweet, everything salty will taste bitter, and it gives water a strong orange-like taste. It’s also very expensive…costing about ￥16000 JPY (which is about 200 dollars).

or you know this could be photoshopped

but idk

you tell me

this is alexandrias melon (wow)

it never grows seeds but it can still produce other melons (its magic)

it is grown deep in the jungles of peru and can prevent you from aging well into the hundreds

it is known by the natives there as k’uhul ajaw cacao shi-jiiy.

its really strange how all of these pictures look exactly the same because everything on the internet is true

This is the Peppermeloni. (seriously gosh just look at that sexy mother fucker) Its scientific name is Tumblrous Pepperonus.

The only known specimen is in a pot in David Karps treasure dungeon. It is a tradition that a single slice is given to every tumblr blog that reaches 500,000 followers.

It has the remarkable property of being as healthy as watermelon but tasting like cheesy pepperoni pizza.

This planet is really just so amazing guys wow.

In late 2005 the Jolly Rancher company grew over-confident and decided that the manufactured “watermelon” flavor injected into its candies was so superior to actual watermelons that the genetically engineered a watermelon to taste like watermelon flavor.

When the fruit was sliced open, they were shocked to discover that the Jolly Rancher logo had been three-dimensionally rendered inside of the fruit itself. Jolly Rancher subsequently named the sub-species after itself Jollyrancherus Watermelonii.

Never have a laughed so hard at a tumblr post.

edwardspoonhands: tyleroakley: brachiotomy: So I went to...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:18:23 -0400

edwardspoonhands:

tyleroakley:

brachiotomy:

So I went to Goodwill today and

WE’VE CREATED A MONSTER.

I think this is fantastic and I hope that 1. They didn’t have to pay for that and 2. It doesn’t get them in trouble.

That moment when a lone voice makes something instantly cool.

4-8yr Olds Describing Love.

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:47:31 -0400

Rebecca, age 8: When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.

Terri, age 4: Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.

Danny, age 7: Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.

Nikka, age 6: If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate.

Elaine, age 5: Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.

Chris, age 7: Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.

Mary Ann, age 4: Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.

Dontcapthat.org

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:41:23 -0400

Most of the news I receive is online through a multitude of social network and news sites. To data cap would effectively remove free access to sites such as facebook, twitter, youtube, tumblr and reddit. Video consumption, a large contributor to the loss of bandwidth and data currency, would have to be curtailed to stay within limits and the sites such as CNN, ABC, MSNBC, Fox News, as well as entertainment sites such as Hulu and Netflix would be affected.

This I write not even as a creator but as a consumer. In this day and age, the global consciousness is expanding at a rapid rate for those that are interested. Ignorance is slowly being pushed back into dark recesses and competition is created for traditional news sources and entertainment as they all via for consumers like me. Data capping the internet is equivalent to the burning of books, and publicly supporting a current business model that needs the healthy capitalist competition that fosters change and inspires companies and individuals alike to greatness is a heinous act upon the minds of US and world population.

"One person, or a small handful at most, may have done a terrible thing today in Boston. It is too..."

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:03:00 -0400

““One person, or a small handful at most, may have done a terrible thing today in Boston. It is too soon to know exactly who or why. Far more important, and already confirmed by every reliable source, is that hundreds of people, and probably many thousands, responded and continue to respond with courage and love, to protect, to rescue, and to heal their fellow human beings. That is the part I choose to highlight. That is the humanity I love. The proof this world is beautiful, not evil. The proof we are worth saving.” - Kevin Haines”

- Taken from the Adult Nerdfighter Page of Facebook.

Kick Monday in the nutsack.Wedgie Wednesday’s...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 14:42:42 -0400

Kick Monday in the nutsack.
Wedgie Wednesday’s buttcrack.
I’m coming hard for Friday.
And if you’re not, get the fuck back.

-Kick Monday by George Watsky

thebrainscoop: I currently intern at the National Museum of Natural History. The other day in a...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:24:14 -0400

thebrainscoop:

I currently intern at the National Museum of Natural History. The other day in a meeting, the Director brought up the Brain Scoop as a model of where he wants to see our education and outreach go. That’s awesome!

This is the coolest thing I have ever heard in my life. I screamed when I read it.

I submit to you, the Hank Green-Midas touch once again. Also congrats to Emily and Michael for making such a big impression.

10 mins of awesome. This is how you know it is a good day.

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:38:54 -0400

10 mins of awesome. This is how you know it is a good day.

edwardspoonhands: lizziekeiper: melissaanelli: asammyg: katie...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:50:56 -0400

edwardspoonhands:

lizziekeiper:

melissaanelli:

asammyg:

katiewoodger:

DISNEY HAVE STOLEN MY ARTWORK

I don’t know what to do. I am so upset. Can anyone help me?

My painting was created back in 2010, (see it HERE) and since then so many people have expressed their love for it, not just on tumblr, but in many places. At least 9 people had it tattooed on their bodies. It’s one of my favourite images I created at University and I was proud of it in many ways.

Disney have used it on a cosmetics bag HERE (look at the back)
and they have produced a Tshirt HERE with a really similar design clearly modeled from my painting

I’m so mad because I have no chance at getting Disney to do anything about it. I had so much respect for the company and now I am just SO upset and disappointed.

Any help, advice or signal boosting would be amazing. And thank you so much to the kind person who messaged me about this.

This is really sad.

Look at the bag. It is the EXACT drawing. This is terrible. For the company responsible for a lot of current copyright law to do this - wow.

Please signal boost. Literally the only thing someone can do against Disney’s stealing someone’s work. Without all the lawyers.

This is so sad. :(

Signal Boost…DISNEY! One of your designers stole this and no one noticed. Please give Katie a fair (7%) royalty WITHOUT going through the unnecessary hassle of a law suit…THANK YOU! That would be the only way to prove to me that you don’t suck.

And another.

Hank's Tumblr: Is This OK?

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 17:11:11 -0400

Hank's Tumblr: Is This OK?:

edwardspoonhands:

shoofle:

amblingantiscion:

edwardspoonhands:

I love Tumblr…big big love. And I like that you can like or reblog something without commenting on it, because, like, not everything needs commentary…not everything needs to be analyzed to be amplified.

But when I post original content (specifically blog posts or videos) I really like to…

Specifically, you said near the end of your post, “Is Tumblr … a place where you define yourself simply by the things that you like, and not by the things you say and think?”

In your post, you make claim that tumblr is great at facilitating a broader public discussion. I would contend to disagree with you, and lay claim that tumblr is actually one of the worst places for public discussion. Bear with me, I’ll come back to this point.

I think we (and the large part of everyone who is on tumblr) would agree that the benefits of the like/reblog system are very conducive for getting like-minded people behind a cause. However, this is not discussion. At its best, it is a rally cry. However, at its worst, it is an instrument to pander to and slap the shoulders of like-minded folk.

Now you might be saying, “But Ant! we’re having a debate about the presence of debate!” And you would be correct. This debate will never be seen, though, for three similar, but outstanding points:

It is natural to take the path of least resistance. If a blogger can safely ignore naysaying commentary in a social variant of Occam’s Razor, they will. Why reblog what you do not immediately agree with? Why “like” what you do not agree with? Those that do seem to be the exception to the rule.

Tumblr’s dashboard is absolutely impenetrable when it comes to any sort of multi-way conversation. How many clicks does it take to display the reblogs or comments on a post? Who is responding to whom? If the discussion didn’t evolve from your own personal thread, then you will likely miss out on thousands of potential conversations, and the same points will get made at various points, and no one will be the wiser.

There are too many cat pictures and fandom cultures. By contrast, the Paris Review’s blog for poetry gets a couple hundred reblogs at best per post. Unless a work falls into one of the two prior categories, chances are it will go largely unseen.

I think Tumblr is good for many things, and is a decent facet for spreading agreeable or amusing ideas. The level, intensity, and ease of contribution, however, are not apt conditions for good discussion. That much is clear. But there is an implicit aversion to dissonance on tumblr, and I don’t think it is as all-inclusive as espoused. So I would give a resounding yes: Tumblr is a place to define yourself by what you like, but distilled by what other people like. In a culture immersed in positivity, you won’t find much else.

Tumblr is absolutely not made or optimized for discussions or back-and-forths - in fact, I’m pretty sure that a lot of design decisions were made specifically to make it a hostile environment for chatter, so that the focus would be on the content rather than on the culture surrounding it. However, culture, like life, finds a way.

There hasn’t yet been a forum for internet discussions on topics that doesn’t suffer from some number of glaring flaws, especially when the community scales. It might actually be that this is less a flaw in the systems we’ve developed and more a flaw in how communities function - a limitation of human social skills.

Excellent points above.

This post has had like 500 reblogs, and most of them have had intelligent and thoughtful captions, and I will not read many of those things and I won’t respond to the vast majority of them.

But there are so many good points in the posts above, that I wanted to share them, and then this specific discussion gets to be a kind of new content, that people can think about and share if they think it’s cool. Instead of a discussion happening in the vastness of the YouTube comments or a bulletin board, it’s a kind of discussion-as-content, which I think is very cool (and is exactly what’s happening in a super meta way right now.)

I guess, beyond discussion, there’s an element of commentary beyond a binary “like/dsilike” or, in tumblr’s case, a ternary “reblog/like/no-action.” When we open up the quaternary system “reblog/like/no-action/caption” that fourth option is infinite…you can make a joke, have a thought, criticize promote, be excited, compare…the action of “captioning” (or even putting a clever comment in the notes) frees us for so much more cultural discourse.

We wouldn’t reblog things if we didn’t think /anyone/ would see them, and yes it’s a lot more work to come up with something “interesting” to say…but it’s worth it…for me anyway.

I disagree. It is impossible outside of a common forum to have any kind of discourse that is meaningful. An option to give a thought on a reblog adds as much to discourse online as adding a dozen words for “funny” to a vast vocabulary. As for who sees this particular diatribe? I seriously doubt Hank Green will ever see this, and he even says as much. I have 11 followers, and I could just about bet 3 of these are inactive, and of the remaining 8, at least 4 will fail to see this as it is lost in pictures of cats or something else. Of the remaining 4, maybe, just MAYBE two will take the time to read what is written as this is not eloquent and it can be considered long winded, and of those two there is an off chance that one of them “likes” what I have written.

I am dismayed really. There is no good place to have a good thoughtful debate about things outside of a forum and I know of very few where the community is decent enough and thoughtful enough to engage in public discourse without it falling victim to “you suck” “no you suck”. I feel almost cheated by the promise of “social media”.

How to save a library from extremists (in this instance the Tea...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:00:12 -0400

How to save a library from extremists (in this instance the Tea Party). Control the conversation.