goatmilksoda:

goatmilksoda:

A question I get asked a lot while working at a public library is “how do you deal with homeless people?”

And the answer is, we don’t.

The unhoused people who come here seeking refuge 99% of the time understand that they will be kicked out if they misbehave.

The people you have to watch out for are Jessica, who only came because the kid she didn’t want had to visit for a homework assignment and she just *needs* to yell at her child for asking to borrow two books or stay an extra five minutes, or Michael, who came in to look at porn on our computers for whatever fucking reason, or Karen who just wanted to come by to throw a fit that the particular book she wanted was checked out and harrass our staff about our collection being too limited.

99% of the time, the people we need to ban are middle to upper-middle class white people while the homeless and mentally ill/disabled people mind their own damn business and are honestly some of the best patrons we have.

I bring this up because today we had a man come in. He stopped at the desk, pulled up a chair and said “I’m newly homeless and was living in my car. I’m disabled. It was impounded. It’s raining. I don’t have a phone and I don’t know where to go tonight.”

And we did what we could to help. He was incredibly kind and patient despite his obvious anxiety and stress, more than most able bodied, housed patrons are to us under much less dire conditions. I liked knowing that we were the first place he came.

We have so many people like this who come in everyday. Many are quiet and keep to themselves, but sometimes they talk to us.

They tell us about how they’re taking a few courses on a scholarship they applied for from our library’s computer at the local community college to get their diploma. Or ask about a manga or dvd or book we might have to help them pass the time.

One woman, who comes in daily with her tattered walker always says hello to me and likes to work on the new jigsaw puzzle with me when we set one out.

So like, treat unhoused people like people. Treat disabled people like people. I don’t want my library to feel like the only safe space in the world, but I’m glad it can be one of them.

I’m so sick of hearing about how “the homeless are ruining everything” when they are some of the kindest, most respectful people here. Sometimes they mutter, might not have had a place to shower, and might need a little extra space for their backpacks but that’s FINE. It Doesn’t Matter Actually. None of that is a problem or any of my business to care about (unless they request help/services), and I also don’t think it’s any of yours.

Well said

(via titania-saturnine)

libraryogre:

supremeshogunrj:

killowave:

The longer it takes for this to come across your dash the funnier it is

Which will fade first? Memories of the Area 51 “raid”, or memories of Internet Explorer?

(via narwhalsarefalling)

dduane:

persephinae:

chefpyro:

blazing-forge:

chefpyro:

chichi2000fgh:

chefpyro:

dont talk to me if you don’t know that this, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight! Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed! It impacts with the force of a 38-kiloton bomb! That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth. That means: Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space. Now! Serviceman Burnside! What is Newton’s First Law?

An object in motion stays in motion Sir!

No credit for partial answers, maggot!

Sir! Unless acted upon by an outside force, sir!

Damn straight! I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty! Once you fire this hunk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship. Or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years! If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining someone’s day, somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not “eyeball it!” This is a weapon of mass destruction! You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!

Well, that was bracing. 😄

dduane:

For Cheap Chocolate Week: Get our whole ebook store for $44!

…I racked my brain and couldn’t think of anything better to call this week. Because, truly, it’s amazing how the chocolate prices drop. And it occurred to me, “Why not extend the concept? Cheap ebooks are good too…”

So here’s the deal. (And for those who’ve been waiting for one of these sales to roll around again, to better suit your personal cashflow needs… here’s your moment!)

Until midnight Irish time (7 PM US Eastern time, 4PM Pacific) on April 13th, you can get the whole Ebooks Direct store full of my DRM-free ebooks for just USD $44. That’s 35 ebooks for you to add to your probably-already-softly-groaning digital TBR pile. (All of which, if you lose them somehow, we’ll happily replace for free… and if you change readers or platforms, we’ll swap your formats to different ones. That’s free too. I mean, it’s not like we’ve got a space program to support or anything! Why make you pay for books twice? That seems excessive, if not actively greedy.)

The “Give Me Everything You’ve Got” ebook package includes more than two million words’ worth* of fantasy and science fantasy, both YA and adult. The above-linked page has the complete listing of works… including the updated/revised New Millennium editions of my award-winning Young Wizards series (she said, blushing gently…), and the groundbreaking (and also Lambda-award-winning) Middle Kingdoms LGBTQ-centered fantasy series.

So if you want to take advantage of the offer and grab our whole ebook store for $44, just go to this page and follow the directions.

Meanwhile, here comes the usual frustrated note for our British friends: unfortunately we can’t sell directly to you. It’s a Brexit thing. Info about that is here (as well as info about the workaround we’re building for you). As always, our apologies.

So thanks for your interest… and whether you take advantage of this offer or not, may you score good chocolate this week. (Also: if you’ve already got one of these packages, or aren’t otherwise interested, would you mind reblogging this for the attention of others who might want it? Please & thank you!)

*Actually, 2,685,698 words. But who’s counting… ? :)

mottowrites:

nonsensicallycereal:

skiptomy:

systlin:

lewd-plants:

systlin:

jedifish81:

systlin:

lewd-plants:

systlin:

lewd-plants:

New goddess idea: She’s an earth goddess of the new age who’s domain is spinning and weaving, but specifically spinning and weaving gigantic structural steel cables for construction and other industrial purposes. Her skin is steel grey and hard to the touch and her hair is like long dredlocks of woven steel. She laughs at shitty architecture deigns that will fall apart if actually built and protects well-made bridges and buildings she likes. She might warn you of unforseen danger if you always wear your proper PPE.

Okay now what do I name her

O’sha. 

Obviously 

THAT’S PERFECT

I AM ALWAYS HERE FOR QUALITY WORKPLACE SAFETY REGULATION PUNS

That’s my goddess. 👍🏻

May O’sha bless you with earplugs that are comfortable and respirators that fit perfectly. 

And good steel. Always good steel.

May your steel deliveries be always on time and your rebar strong

I’m just gonna…. put this here…..

hope you don’t mind

BEAUTIFUL

O’sha, like many of the new gods, manifested to us when magic saw fit to rise again. With her arrival she brought new life to the steel industry. Forges and factories that had fallen into disuse became her new temples as she took her domain as the Goddess of cities and mother of architecture. With her guidance  architects discovered new materials and built to heights that baffled the mind.

Her worshipers invoke her name at the start of a new project at the very close of it. When pleased O’sha grants boons of protection and fortifications to buildings that please her, keeping rot and ruin from fouling with their designs.  Such blessings are not extended to the inept or foolish. In the most egregious offenses O’sha keeps such structures from even getting off the ground.

To ensure O’sha’s blessing construction workers and architects wear bands of braided steel around their wrist or dye there hair to match their goddess’s metallic locks. 

(via impling)

callmehopeless asked:

Hi Neil, as someone who wants to write and can't bring themselves to write, despite loving writing and wanting to write; how do you write? Is there a magical way to make yourself write? Or is the truth more honest and genuine: that writing is the way to write?

I have half a novel, a deep desire to write, and an inability to make my fingers type the words.

How do I circumvent this? Or, as I suspect, is there truly no shortcut?

neil-gaiman:

There’s no shortcut. You polish a chair with your bottom, get through the backache and the bad days and you write it, one word at a time.

Guess I better stop browsing Tumblr. ;(

coloredcompulsion:

(via elodieunderglass)

proximally:

apparently i have polls now. what’s your favourite chainsaw safety feature

guide bar sheath (to prevent damage to chain, and prevent damage from chain)

combo chain brake and front hand guard (stops chain rotation & protecc hand)

exhaust (muffles noise, pointed away from user)

anti-vibration features (springs protecc from harmful vibration)

chain catcher (stops chain maiming you if chain derails)

safety decals (illegal to operate a chainsaw without them)

rear hand guard (in case chain catcher isn’t enough)

on/off switch (clearly marked, kills engine)

throttle trigger lockout/dead man switch (prevents accidental use)

optional anti-kickback chain features (reduce kickback)

See Results

Given my sons into logger sports I suppose I should have a stronger opinion, but who can resist something called the dead man switch?

(via narwhalsarefalling)

dduane:

sadhoc:

mierac:

greyhairedgeekgirl:

littledeconstruction:

bemusedlybespectacled:

thesuperfeyneednoshoes:

bemusedlybespectacled:

bemusedlybespectacled:

bemusedlybespectacled:

bemusedlybespectacled:

this might be because I’m a family law lawyer and also an old crone who remembers when marriage equality wasn’t a thing (as in, marriage equality only became nation-wide two months before I went to law school), but I have Strong Feelings about the right to marry and all the legal benefits that come with it

like I’m all for living in sin until someone says they don’t want to get married because it’s ~too permanent~ and in the same breath start talking about having kids or buying a house with their significant other. then I turn into a 90-year-old passive-aggressive church grandma who keeps pointedly asking when the wedding is. “yes, a divorce is very sad and stressful, but so is BEING HOMELESS BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT ENTITLED TO EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF MARITAL PROPERTY, CAROLINE!”

“oh, he thinks a piece of paper shouldn’t define your relationship? ASK HIM HOW HE FEELS ABOUT BEING ON YOUR BABY’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE, PATRICIA.”

“oh, sure, it’s all fun and games until your estranged parents are making medical decisions for you and inheriting all your property, TIMOTHY.”

so, I’ve gotten this question and similar ones before, and I want to use it to go into what marriage actually is.

so, in law, there are a couple of legal assumptions made when someone is a close family member, like a parent. the assumptions are that this person knows you well enough to make decisions on your behalf in an emergency, supports or is supported by you financially, and, most importantly, that they are emotionally significant to you in a way that makes them different from a total stranger or a good friend. immigration law, for example, prioritizes families over people immigrating for jobs alone, because not getting a job doesn’t have the same emotional weight as never seeing your mom again.

the difference is that you don’t get to choose your family (outside of adoption and, uh, legally that’s not a bilateral decision). you do get to choose your spouse. the fact that you chose them is why they get priority for things like inheritance and immigration, even over your parents or your siblings or your grandma.

how does the government know that this particular person is someone you want to have as part of your family? you fill out a form and you tell them.

what happens if you don’t want them in your family anymore, and don’t want those assumptions made about them? you fill out a different form and you tell the government that.

the thing I think that’s hard for people to wrap their heads around – whether you’re a starry-eyed romantic or a pragmatic bitch like me – is that marriage isn’t an announcement of how much you love someone. that’s what a facebook status update is for. you do not need to be in love, or sexually/romantically monogamous, or be religious, or any of the other things people associate with marriage, in order to be married.

it’s a legal decision. it is choosing to get certain benefits (like taxes, because it’s assumed you’re financially supporting each other) in exchange for certain responsibilities (because it’s assumed you’re supporting each other, it stops mattering exactly who bought what after you got married, so divorce splits the whole pool of stuff even if one person bought like 75% of it).

you don’t get the one without the other, and you don’t get either if you don’t affirmatively say that’s what you want to have happen. it doesn’t happen automatically, or in every romantic relationship no matter how serious, because the choice is the point.

and, to be clear: if you do not want, or do not care about, the legal rights and responsibilities of being married, you should not get married. it’s a fucking legal contract that has serious legal implications! it’s not something you should be doing for funsies!

tl;dr: if you want all the shit that comes with a marriage, good and bad, you need to tell the government that’s what you want. if you don’t want it, then you don’t need to do it, but you need to also be aware of what you’re potentially losing (in exchange for what you’re keeping). that should be an informed decision, not one you make for emotional reasons like “I just want everyone to know I’m only having sex with this person forever” or “our love is so pure it transcends legal boundaries.”

Is there any option other than marriage for telling the government you want this person to be part of your family? Like, can you draw up some kind of homebrew contract?

Short answer: No. If there was, queer people would have done it already.

Long answer: That’s a little like asking “can you become a citizen via contract rather than going through the immigration and naturalization process?” Marriage is a legal status: you either are or you aren’t. Can you cobble together very specific stuff, like advanced healthcare directives and wills and whatnot? Yes, absolutely. But anything that requires you to be legally married as a status cannot be contracted away: you can’t file taxes jointly or sponsor someone for a green card or get someone’s Social Security benefits if they die if you’re not married to that person.

Now, to be clear: some things that often require marriage do not always require marriage. For example, usually you need to be married to have someone unrelated to you be on your health insurance, but my job’s specific health insurance plan allows coverage for domestic partners, which they define as a single person who has cohabitated with you for six months or more and is in a committed relationship with you. So even though my fiancé and I are not married yet, he’s been on my health insurance for the past year and a half, because we hit the six month mark of living together right around when I had to re-enroll in my health insurance for the year.

But if we’d gotten married sooner, he’d have been able to get on my health insurance right away (getting married is a qualifying event that lets someone get on a health insurance plan outside of the enrollment period), but since he’s just a cohabitating partner, we had to wait six months for him to get on my insurance. And if he’d moved in with me a month later, we’d have to wait a whole year before he could enroll with me on my health insurance. Even though it’s allowed, it still doesn’t have the same standing as a marriage.

I guess technically adult adoption is an option, in that it is what queer people did for a while in lieu of marriage, but it’s a bad idea for a lot of reasons (not least of which being that you can divorce a spouse but you can’t undo an adoption).

this, THIS is why QPR make me so fucking nervous. i’m not trying to shit on your beautiful poly aroace love affair, i’m asking you HOW WILL THIS RELATIONSHIP HOLD UP IN COURT. cause, news flash: it won’t.

if you have shared bank accounts and a house and a kid with someone who isn’t married to you, they can wipe you out – legally speaking – and you have no recourse. none. you will never see your kid again, unless you’re lucky and contributed half their DNA.

if they have a car accident and end up in hospital, you don’t have a legal right to see them. if they’re in a coma, their parents can pull the plug and adopt that child and you can do nothing.

queers wanted marriage equality not to Be Like Teh Hets, but because it is the most legal protection you can ever have against that bad stuff that comes (and it comes for everyone).

if you don’t have that stuff, if you’re relying on your partners to do the right thing forever and be perfect people and never have a business collapse or a messy family situation or an accident or even to get sick … you’re being really, really naïve.

Pre-legal-gay-marriage, I saw this happen.  I was on a parenting board and one day a woman we’d posted with for years told us her partner and one of their children had died in a car accident.  And because she wasn’t the biological parent of the surviving child – the child she’d been a parent to since conception – her ex’s parents took custody and took the child away and kept her from seeing that child.  Ever.

Because here’s the thing: children are not property.  Specifically, in estate law, children are not, and cannot be “Real Property.”  You cannot bequeath them like furniture, books, and bank accounts.   

“But my will states who I want as guardian!”  You say.

Welp.  That statement is, in law, only a (strong) suggestion.  A judge still still have to rule on guardianship of your minor child, and you cannot, from the grave, dictate where they end up.  

Again: Children are not real property. If you are not their biological or legal parent, the state can remove them from your custody and hand them to someone more closely related, or not related at all but merely less gay, less queer, less “inappropriate” by your state’s legal standards.

The woman I knew back then was on good term with her not-quite-in-laws. Or thought she was.  Because as soon as her partner died, their tune changed 100%, they found anti-gay legal support, and they took that woman’s child from her.  Forever. 

That’s not my only “my outlaws are great and fine with us and its okay we’re not legally married” story, but it’s probably the most heartbreaking.  Though the image of a man who has just lost his partner of 25 years watching his ex-outlaws take ½ of his chairs, ½ of his pillows, ½ of his sheets, ½ of his napkins, ½ of his towels, ½ of his dishes, ½ of his books….. is pretty fucking close.  After they made him sit behind “the family” at his partner’s funeral.

My mother was a lifelong Republican, a very conservative Catholic. The thing that pushed her over on legalizing gay marriage was stories about people being in the hospital and their partner of 20 years not being allowed to see them, because they weren’t legally married. She thought that was wrong and unfair. 

Also a reminder “get married” does not mean “have a wedding.” You can file the paperwork and get married in a courthouse or office. There doesn’t even need to be a ceremony, you just have to sign some papers. (Bonus: you get access to the legal privileges of marriage as well as the protections, AND you get to stick it to the billion dollar “wedding industry” that preys on us all.)

#this is also why marriage equality for disabled people is super important

All of the above.

(via hello-delicious-tea)

boot-prints:

I saw a post asking about GNU Terry Pratchett today and it occurred to me how wild it is that this man wrote fantasy, yes, but how he wrote about things that were real. He wrote about an act of love and grief, about keeping a man alive through his name and through what he loves, about rememberance, and how when he eventually passed himself we took that act and put it into the real world because that part of his writing was always real.

GNU, a message passed on, not logged, and turned around at the end. It might pass under your hands and be passed on once or a thousand times and each time is an act of love. He may have gone but his name still matters and it is still spoken because he is still loved. It will not be forgotten while that is still true.

GNU Terry Pratchett

(via turtle-recall)

weaselle:

aspiringwarriorlibrarian:

delphinidin4:

shitacademicswrite:

hatingongodot:

“In 1404, King Taejong fell from his horse during a hunting expedition. Embarrassed, looking to his left and right, he commanded, “Do not let the historian find out about this.” To his disappointment, the historian accompanying the hunting party included these words in the annals, in addition to a description of the king’s fall.“

LMFAOOOOOO rip to that guy

i thought maybe this was fake, but there’s even a citation!

Taejong Sillok Book 7. 5th year of King Taejong’s Reign (1404), February 8.

Happy 618th anniversary of the day King Taejong fell from his horse!

Apparently the recorders were really intense about this. We have a record of King Taejong complaining about a recorder who followed him on a hunt in disguise and another who eavesdropped on him behind a screen. No one was allowed to see the records, even the king (one king did and killed five men based on what was written there, after which they took greater care to ensure it would never happen again), and changing the content or disclosing it was a capital punishment. Even when there were rival political factions trying to influence the writers, they wrote down what was a revision and what wasn’t and kept an original version with no revisions in it.

They also made sure to back up their data. They made four copies of it, then when three copies were lost in the Imrim Wars they decided to make five more copies just in case. One copy was destroyed in a rebellion, another was partially damaged in an invasion, and Japan stole one copy during their occupation and moved it to Tokyo University, where it was mostly destroyed in the Kanto Earthquake (47 books remained and were returned to South Korea in 2006). Now the whole thing is digitized, free on the internet, and translated into modern Korean for all to see.

It took centuries of meticulous recorders, justifiably paranoid copiers, absolutely determined historians, and painstaking infrastructure for this joke to be possible. Happy 618th anniversary to the day King Taejong fell from his horse.

“You can’t tell me as commander of police I can’t stop some little ti– some idiot from writing down anything he likes?”
“Oh, no, sir. Of course you can. But I’m not sure you can stop him from writing down that you stopped him writing things down,”

- Terry Pratchett, The Truth

This is what I love about Tumblr.

(via narwhalsarefalling)

leupagus:

apricops:

Political power in medieval Germany was always split between, on the one hand, the few major families whose power could rival or at least threaten the Holy Roman Emperor, and on the other hand a collection of independent towns and smallholders. The balance of power was, one could say, between five guys, burghers, and freis.

I saw this joke coming from 4.6 miles away, standing in the middle of the road as it waved at me from the top of the double-decker bus, and it still flattened me

(via shredsandpatches)

Anonymous asked:

I just saw your "Senior Director of Belonging" post. When I was job-hunting a few years ago, one teaching job that showed up was "Professor of Uncertainty Quantification." No idea what that job entailed, but it certainly sounded like the newest position at Unseen University.

copperbadge:

ignescent:

copperbadge:

It’s especially good because adding “Professor” to something that isn’t the usual STEAM topics like biology or art history or computer science just makes any word seem slightly more diabolical. Professor of Uncertainty Quantification sounds like it’s probably a lot of mathematical modeling, and something I’d probably be pretty interested in, but also it sounds like someone you keep on a spaceship in order to prevent the ship from colliding with stray asteroids.

I do miss when we had a Center for Advanced Hindsight at our uni.

The University of Chicago, a few years ago, created the Center for the Study of Acquisition of Knowledge, which means that UChicago has finally, after many decades of trying, figured out how to study studying. 

Now I want a list of all the new professors at the Unseen University