Stories More than True

-- Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins

Happy Moon Day, all.

Happy International Moon Day

Anniversary of APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING

On July 20, 1969, 109 hours and 42 minutes after launch, Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin entered the lunar lander ‘Eagle’, made a final check, and the Eagle undocked from the lunar orbiter ‘Columbia’, where the third member of the crew Michael Collins, stayed in orbit around the moon. Partially manually piloted by Armstrong, the Eagle landed 0 degrees, 41 minutes, 15 seconds north moon latitude and 23 degrees, 26 minutes east moon longitude. Armstrong stepped out, and Aldrin followed 20 minutes later: human beings stepped on the moon for the first time. The two men spent 21 hours and 26 minutes on its surface. One of the astounding aspects of the mission was the seeming simplicity of the technology used to get man to the moon. According to Oliver Gassmann, professor of Technology Management, the mobile phone in your pocket has one million times more memory than the Apollo 11’s computer. Same about the procesor: the latest phones typically have more than 100,000 times the processing power of the computer that landed man on the moon 50 years ago.

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” –Neil Armstrong

No letter is pronunced the way it should.

the first picture shows a tweet:

"Don't police comedy" Well. I'm not going to arrest anyone. I'm not even trying to cancel anyone in the 2010s sense of having them lose their job. My goal for comedians who make regressive jokes is for them to change their minds. And for everyone to understand why jokes matter.

the second picture shows a quote retweet. twitter user ChoppedBeef says:

"All I want is for everyone to agree with me"

to which Benny Feldman's response is:

I would like everyone to be not racist instead of racist, yes

If you say shit that's mean or racist or transphobic, some people will not like you! Some people may, in fact call you an asshole.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from social and economic consequences! Somebody calling you a dick and refusing to give you money is not the same as throwing you in a gulag.

look up recipes (especially snack recipes) that are child/toddler/baby-friendly

It's 2004. Google has just announced an exciting new venture: Google Print. With the blessing of five major libraries, Google sets out to digitalize the world's print material. Its search function, which will allow people to read and review print books digitally, is set to revolutionize information forever.

There was only one, teeny tiny problem... they didn't ask permission.

None.

At all.

Authors were gobsmacked. Nothing like this had ever happened before. What right had Google to scan, copy, and save copyrighted books to its databases... and at this scale? Lawsuits mounted. Google backpedaled, then talked of settling. Eventually, Ursula Le Guin spilled the tea. It was a whole thing.

Back then, the point many authors (including Le Guin) were making wasn't directed against the digitization of print books as such (widening access to the world's knowledge? Who doesn't want that?)...

No, authors were concerned with how Google went about it, and the threat it posed for intellectual property. Google's actions tossed aside the custom, long enshrined in law, that writers and publishers should have control over how their material is used and distributed—a tradition that many believe... exists for good reason.

(We'll get to it.)

What Le Guin and others realized is that Google's message of "democratizing the internet" (a platitude often used by techno-libertarians and broligarchs who, it turns out, aren't so keen on the whole "democracy" thing...) masked a sinister intention: to wrangle the world's commons under its own private control.

From where we're standing now (🥲), the scandal and ensuing lawsuit have a little too much familiarity: Google learned what they could get away with and how.

Then they kept doing that.

Move fast; break copyright; settle later (if ever).

The point is: the Print drama wasn't your average copyright scandal—it was the world's first ever mass data-harvesting event.

The training of Google Gemini began 22 years ago, on the day Google started claiming the world's knowledge for itself.

To understand our present predicaments, we have to know our history. Google Print was virgin soil. What followed—the scale of the data theft, the absolute skeeviness/grift of it all—felt unprecedented at the time.

🤏🕶️

Make a bottle tower garden (a small one could do well on a windowsill) 

Make eco-friendly household cleaners

Germinate strawberry seeds and care for the plants 

Grow plants from cuttings (you can grow almost anything this way) 

Make a sun jar 

Grow low maintenance houseplants 

Make a string garden 

Make a wall planter 

Germinate an avocado seed 

Make a shoe pocket garden 

Build a mini solar generator 

Re-grow kitchen scraps 

Find the right solar battery charger 

Recycle old solar cells 

If your answer is no because that goes against bodily autonomy which is a human right, then you understand why abortion should be legal. You are not required to give up your bodily autonomy for anyone no matter their age or their familial relation to you. Bodily autonomy comes first.

You think it’s murder? Well, even murder has exceptions. Self defense is legal if someone is trying to hurt you or even other people. If all abortion is illegal no matter how dangerous it is to the mother then self defense should be illegal too. Murder is murder, yes? No exceptions.