Future Ruler of the World

Calls himself “mostly straight”. Wore a shirt that says “OPENLY GRAY” (he has gray hair)

Saw a photo from him in like 2010 wearing a pro trans rights shirt

Very passionate about the “you can’t tattoo dark skin” argument in that it’s “a fuckin’ skill issue”

We’re allowed to kick anyone out of the shop for being an asshole

Staunchly against tattoo machismo and the shop is about to be a 2:1 ratio of women to men. Which he’s overjoyed about

Moshes in the middle of the shop. To the B-52’s

Constantly sneak attacked by one of our artists with a spray bottle who is half his age (and height)

Returned later with a video of a squirt gun hooked up to a power washer and told them “you don’t want this smoke”

Said yes to a kink tattoo requested by a gay bear and his sub

Says gay bars are his favorite bars

Constantly talks about his wife and how smart she is

Smoked a bowl before sitting down to give me an art critique. Is amazing at it

Huge Fallout and Elder Scrolls nerd

Gave me $400+ worth of Frazetta art books from the 1980’s bc we’re both huge fans

Showed me his mugshot

Often, pseudoscience and misinformation comes packaged with a lot of very important sounding words, and the jargon gets to the point where it seems like a lot of work to fact check it. Which makes the 'I encourage you to do your own research' statements real obnoxious. If it's phrased in a way that's impossible to navigate, good luck.

It sucks, but you gotta.

If you don't want to fact check individual words, that's fine. That's a lot to ask of someone that's just trying to figure out whether something is true.

This is where we get into something called 'lateral research.' Instead of trying to draw a map to a sentence, you check the credibility of their source material.

This is your Snopes, your Fact Check/Media Bias, your Follow The Money.

Knowing more context about what someone is saying will save you a lot of time and energy.

Practice SIFT! SIFT is based on lateral research and can be very helpful for these situations.

DON'T just share information without doing your due diligence.

i have found this post and infographic and i want to share it

INVESTIGATE THE SOURCE

zetabrarian's blog says they are a socially progressive librarian monsterfucker, which a quick scroll through their blog seems to support. This makes them pretty cool but not necessarily the perfect source -- anyone can say they are a librarian, and surely not every librarian is correct about processing information

FIND BETTER COVERAGE

if i go to a search engine (in this case google via firefox) i see that several universities, libraries from large municipalities (like Los Angeles) as well as the BBC all agree that this is a real method experts in information fields recommend. I wouldn't necessarily take any single one of these sources as 100% credible, but they are individually reasonably reliable, and taken together indicate a high probability of factual information

TRACE TO ORIGINAL CONTEXT

A brief search reveals that the SIFT method was created by Mike Caulfield, who is a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, where he studies the spread of online rumors and misinformation. This is an extremely good source of information for how to process information on the internet. As the creator of the SIFT method, he has taught thousands of teachers and students how to verify claims and sources through his workshops.

I could not find a post or page about SIFT written by Mike Caulfield himself, so i went to the University of Washington's website for this page about it, since that is the university that employs him.

It corroborates the above information, though there are a few notable differences. For example, under the "trace to original context" section in the Washington U. source (again, as close to the original as i could find) this step contains advice to check the date. This seems very good to include, as in the fast moving world of internet information, things become outdated or get updated very quickly, and yet first takes and outdated articles hang around and get shared for a long time.

EXTRA CREDIT

"STOP:

You found something that may or may not be true! STOP yourself from sharing it right away and follow the next steps.

INVESTIGATE THE SOURCE:

Figure out where the information is coming from. A reporter? A scientist? A random person on the internet?

FIND BETTER COVERAGE:

Are there sources talking about this claim or issue? See what they're saying about it.

TRACE TO ORIGINAL CONTEXT:

Find where the information was originally published. There might be context that was removed by the cycle of sharing on the internet."

Another textbox is added with a bullet-point list:

"Reminders:

"Bad things can happen AND there could be false stories about it. Both can happen at the same time.

"Not sure if it's credible? Don't share it!"

At the bottom is a header labeled "REFERENCES," with text under it saying, "Adapted from library.nwacc.edu/lateralreading/sift"

GET YELLED AT

…he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. ( LOC )

“Cruel war against human nature itself.” Thomas Jefferson wrote that. Yeah. Thomas Jefferson.

And I think it’s worth mentioning that they’re already using strong language to describe the slavery of the tobacco plantations of the 1770s. They haven’t even seen the full, capitalist horror of what the cotton economy would be. Even before cotton, they knew.

I cannot overstate how much I appreciate that Vera is not okay. Her mother was rotten to her and she still felt so much pain at losing her that it broke her, and everything that happened after drove her deeper and deeper into nihilism. She went through horrific trauma and she's actually traumatised. Our hero is a mess, because deep down she's the kind of person who buys cat food for a stray even when she's determined to collapse into nothingness.

Whereas our villain, Agent Layne, is able to be incredibly positive and bright and cheerful and happy, because he doesn't actually give a shit. He killed people in the Low Probability Event and it doesn't bother him. It got him out of his rut. He's pleased he has no oversight because it means he gets to do whatever the hell he wants to get results. Every kindness he shows to Vera is for the purpose of making her a more useful tool. Because that's ALL people are to him.

And damn if I don't just love that. That the nihilist is actually full of compassion and empathy even when she hates it. That the optimist only cares about himself and his own experiences. Because it resonates. I struggle with depression and anxiety and ASD and ADHD and there are times when the blackness would be so easy to slip into. But it's always little acts of kindness that become the rope I drag myself out by.

Mattel website confirmed Claire has a prosthetic eye and some light perception in her left eye (meaning she has some type of severe visual impairment)

It’s awesome seeing a canon disabled main character! Happy disability pride month!!

That’s so awesome I’m super happy we got confirmation on that!!