Dizzy

It is, by any metric, a small country masquerading as a city.

It governs more lives and more wealth than most nations. If democratic socialism — housing reform, public banking, equitable taxation — functions here, it obliterates the myth that such governance can’t work at scale. The fear isn’t ideological. It’s empirical. Because if Mamdani can keep the lights on, reduce homelessness, and maintain economic growth without catering to Wall Street, then the capitalist gospel collapses under its own dead weight.

What terrifies the establishment isn’t failure. It’s feasibility.

If it works in New York, there’s no reason it can’t work in Nebraska. If it works in Queens, it can work in Kansas City. And once proof exists, belief becomes irrelevant. The ship of democracy, fully refitted, will keep sailing — and no one can claim it isn’t American."

me, holding up my cat: stinky

wife: no!! don’t be mean!!!

me, swaying him back and forth in the air: stinky bastard man

wife: No!!!!!!!!

my mother, not looking up from chopping veggies: naughty boy. brat cat

The mom:

Archives are "curated" according to what's called a "collection policy". That means a policy that dictates what you collect; usually along a theme. For example at the university I used to work at the collection policy was to collect archival material pertaining to the local area and its history/important figures. At the historic home I currently work at, the collection policy covers materials pertaining to the person who lived at the house.

your body does pretty much all it's physical rest and repair processes ('stage 4') in the first 4 hours of sleep, so if you've slept for four hours, congratulations the essentials of your physical health are taken care of

the part of the sleep cycle that takes care of your brain and mental health (REM) happens later in the night, hence why waking up too early makes you brain foggy, and why it's so helpful to train yourself to wake up about the same time every morning

we are evolved to wake up several times in the night; we don't usually remember it, but worry and fixation can make us more likely to remember these

sleep under the influence of alcohol is chemically altered and not effective no matter if it helps you sleep - it's fine to have a drunken night of course but don't use alcohol as a sleep aid to 'knock yourself out', being drunk unconscious is not sleep

the best thing you can do for your sleep is follow a routine; go to bed and wake up at the same time most days, and have a 'wind down' routine, preferably including writing down whatever's on your mind to clear it before sleep

for long-term sleep improvement, it's better to wake up at your planned time regardless of sleep quality than to get a full nights' sleep

missing a night of sleep is NOT the disaster certain scaremonger-y sleep 'experts' will tell you - 'slept debt' does NOT exist and you will recover from a missed night of sleep within a few days of normal sleep

meditation is the best alternative to sleep if you're either unable to sleep or feeling the urge to nap (napping is bad for sleep!) - guided ones can help you not to fall asleep, but literally just lying there with your eyes closed and thinking about something neutral is good

acceptance is the best way to alleviate insomnia; do something else, use meditation to supplement that rest, and accept that you aren't sleeping (often, ironically, this will cause you to fall asleep)

a close up to just... light shining through those waves, makes me feel faint with exhilaration every time

Their predecessor is of course the iconic TOS episode "Is There In Truth No Beauty" (3x05), in which a blind woman, Dr. Miranda Jones, (played by Diana Muldaur, who also played Dr. Pulaski in Season 4 of TNG,) is the only one capable of interacting with a non-corporeal alien ambassador, whose species appearance makes people go insane. (They are, obviously, called the Medusans. In Star Trek: Prodigy, they're represented by a character who is referred to with they/them pronouns, because why would a non-corporeal alien species have gender anyways.)

As an argument for Disabled people's inclusion in the Sci-Fi Future Utopia, "who says we don't have something to contribute" is not the best, to put it mildly. I think disentangling Worth and The Right To Exist from the act of Contributing To Society is perhaps the first thing you need to do if you want to seriously learn from disabled people and accept and include us. That said, Star Trek was the first attempt at portraying a Utopian Future that explicitly, purposefully included disabled people that I ever came across, and it was (and still is, somewhat regrettably) deeply meaningful to me for this.

Of the two aforementioned TNG episodes, "The Enemy" is by far my favorite. For one thing, Geordi's plot is the primary mover of the episode and takes up half the screentime, unlike "The Masterpiece Society" in which it's relegated to just one scene. For another, it centers around him and a Romulan officer stranded together on a hostile planet, forced to come together to survive. I love that kind of plot regardless of the species involved, but the Romulans are my favorite. From their introduction in "Balance of Terror" (TOS 1x15) to "Eye Of The Needle" (VOY 1x07), Romulans and Humans have a long history in Star Trek of glimpsing the individual beyond the perceived embodiment of a foreign enemy, and finding the potential for friendship. Needless to say I am emotional about this.

However, in "The Masterpiece Society", the character Geordi interacts with, Hannah Bates, is appropriately embarrassed and uncomfortable discussing the fact that he would not be allowed to be born on her world. In "The Enemy", Bochra is uh, much less so. Something I love about Romulans is the over-the-top delivery of their every line, whether it's the unbearably smug faux ignorance and contrition over crossing The Neutral Zone, or their impassioned disdain for Starfleet, they are so much fun to watch. In this case however, you might find Bochra's angry incomprehension over the care of a "defective child" hard to take. Personally I find his crazed energy very funny, but either way I do think it makes their connection more satisfying, in the end.

As for "Is There In Truth No Beauty", going back to TOS, I enjoy that the value of diversity is embodied not just in disability but also in culture. Dr. Jones isn't capable of interacting with Ambassador Kollos only because she is blind, but also because she studied to control her telepathy on Vulcan. A major tension within the episode is that Starfleet asked Spock to coordinate with Kollos first, which she was terribly jealous of. It's yet another example of Spock's difference from his peers creating unique opportunities to connect with various outsiders. Which is one of my favorite elements of his character, and a theme that is well continued in the following series! (I talked about my favorite example of that, TNG's "Tin Man"(3x20), recently.)

In that broader continuing conversation, I think the biggest step-up is that, unlike Miranda Jones, Geordi La Forge is not ashamed of his blindness, and does not try to hide it. He's not insecure that someone else could take his place, he's not defensive over his abilities and the way he is perceived, and in the face of prejudice is weary rather than injured. He has the confidence that makes sense for someone in a society that accepts him, unlike Dr. Jones.

J J Abrams is famous for making stories that raise questions he never figures out how to answer. He's also the guy with some weird story about a present he never opened and how that's better than presents you open--failing to see that there's a difference between choosing not to open a present and being forbidden from opening one.

You've got lengthy media franchises where installments undo character development or satisfying resolutions from previous installments. Worse, there are media franchises with "trilogies" that are weird slap fights between the makers of each installment.

You've got wildly popular TV shows that end so poorly and unsatisfyingly that no one speaks of them again.

On top of that, a lot of the media actively punishes people for engaging thoughtfully with it. Creators panic and change their stories if the audience properly reacts to foreshadowing. Emotional parts of storytelling are trampled by jokes. Shocking the audience has become the go to, rather than providing a solid story.

A declassified World War II-era government guide to “simple sabotage” is currently one of the most popular open source books on the internet. The book, called “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” was declassified in 2008 by the CIA and “describes ways to train normal people to be purposefully annoying telephone operators, dysfunctional train conductors, befuddling middle managers, blundering factory workers, unruly movie theater patrons, and so on. In other words, teaching people to do their jobs badly.”  Over the last week, the guide has surged to become the 5th-most-accessed book on Project Gutenberg, an open source repository of free and public domain ebooks. It is also the fifth most popular ebook on the site over the last 30 days, having been accessed nearly 60,000 times over the last month (just behind Romeo and Juliet). 

Link to the Guide at Project Gutenberg can be found here

A Wikisource entry can be found here.

The original tweet summarizes it pretty well. Fanfic tends to be popular among certain types of neurodivergent people (aka people most likely to read excessively as a child, and have burnout as an adult) for the same reasons that we tend to hyperfixate–neurochemical signaling (I hope I’m using that phrase correctly). What I mean is, for people who are really dependent on changes in dopamine/serotonin/neurotransmitter levels, who have low levels or wonky neural reward systems (perhaps the most common types of neurodivergence)…people like us rely on dependable external sources of those neurochemicals. In order to function, we spend a lot of our free time trying to level out our brain chemistry using things that can reliably bring us a steady stream of joyful moments (rewards) without costing too much of the mental effort that is already in short supply. 

significantly: the investment of reading has to be balanced with a steady “return on investment”–and this return has to start fairly quickly. because again, we don’t have a lot of attention/energy to invest on tiring things. we have perpetual “low batteries” in that regard.

that doesn’t mean these stories are “simple,” or that they lack complexity or value–only that the reward has to come in short regular intervals, and it has to have a low “upfront cost.” these stories are only “easy” to read in the sense that the effort we put into them is rewarded in a timely manner. which is why fanfic stories are so perfectly formulated for neurodivergent readers–they are often beautifully written, but skip a lot of the upfront costs (of introducing new characters, of world-building, of getting the audience emotionally connected to the story elements).

the nature of fanfiction is that the reader has a pre-existing relationship with this world and these characters. that–combined with the shorter average length of fics–means that fan fics very quickly start rewarding the reader in a way that traditional fiction struggles to. that’s not a bad thing! and maybe it’s something more traditionally published writers should be paying attention to.

I can pick a hurt comfort or a slow burn or an angst with a happy ending.

I can remove the tags I don’t want to see, I can check word count,check if it’s finished and it’s so much easier than books

I know these characters and I see them in my mind so they can pull me on journey into a world I love, unless it’s au universes