cunt activation station

Why?

Because I just had to have this conversation with a moot ive followed for months recently that I thought was Black or brown because their pfp was a face shot of a brown character. So because I never had a reason to DM them like “Hey comrade, you’re Black right?” given they was visually publicly portraying themselves as someone brown, I was casually acting to others as if they was as well and considering them among non-white community members. Which led to awkwardness when I brought them up as that publicly only to receive a DM profusely apologizing to me for accidentally misleading me because they were white and European lol.

If your only visual representation is a person of color and you don’t expressly state you aint one somewhere, a lot of people will assume on first inspection that you’re a person of color as well and aint gonna go like searching your personal tag to find a picture you posted where your hand is petting your cat to confirm your racialization.

2. On the flip side, there are non-Black ESL folks who primarily learned English through consumption of Black American culture and their ability to speak English at all hinges entirely on using AAVE vs. SAE, which depending on proficiency or cultural competence can lead to false positives when there’s no other indicators.

3. Theres a separate person who replied “OP didnt explain why this is bad though” and my answer is “well why is Blackface and other forms of racial impersonation bad headass”. I don’t consider this intentional/fully Blackface most of the time but I do think its often merrily on the road to it.

4. When it comes to antiblackness, racism, and white supremacy there is often usefulness on multiple levels of an in-group of the racially oppressed even/especially if it is not culturally homogenous. Antiblackness is global.

2 is actually something I've noticed myself. Couple weeks ago I noticed a couple like white Swedish girls on the train speaking like they'd learned English from watching black creators. If you can be asked I'd like to hear your thoughts on that phenomenon in general.

Why?

Because I just had to have this conversation with a moot ive followed for months recently that I thought was Black or brown because their pfp was a face shot of a brown character. So because I never had a reason to DM them like “Hey comrade, you’re Black right?” given they was visually publicly portraying themselves as someone brown, I was casually acting to others as if they was as well and considering them among non-white community members. Which led to awkwardness when I brought them up as that publicly only to receive a DM profusely apologizing to me for accidentally misleading me because they were white and European lol.

If your only visual representation is a person of color and you don’t expressly state you aint one somewhere, a lot of people will assume on first inspection that you’re a person of color as well and aint gonna go like searching your personal tag to find a picture you posted where your hand is petting your cat to confirm your racialization.

For a few bucks a month you could become a Triple-A member and yeah, roadside assistance was one of the perks. BUT ALSO you could pick up the phone, call their 1-800 number, and tell the human operator who answered that you were planning a road trip.

They'd get your starting and destination address. Ask a few questions: what kinds of hotels you liked, preferred gas stations, any interest in touristy things?

Then in 7 to 10 days you'd get a thick package in the mail of carefully customized maps. Each map was the size of a paperback book cover, perfect for holding in the passenger's or driver's lap. Each was enumerated starting at #1 and ending at #whatever number of minimaps the trip required, with a hand-drawn highlighter path drawn on the map marking the route from one edge to another; entrance & exit points for that section of the route.

Motels, gas stations, and (if requested) tourist traps were indicated in color coded ink -- again, by hand. Sometimes detours were drawn in red marker, overriding the printed map because AAA kept up to date on road closures & regional disasters.

These maps were customized for your particular trip, and were invaluable since GPS did not exist. Unless you were familiar with the local region, the alternative was buying a map at the next gas station and guessing.

I was told by a taxi driver that in the old days they had to basically memorise the Refidex to pass the Taxi Licence test, since they weren't allowed to use it during the test.

BUT searching for a picture of the 2023 Refidex led me to this!

Brisbane and environs in 1951! Fully digitised with machine readable text and high quality images! I can buy it for 19.50 - nay, I'm GONNA buy it for 19.50! (Although I wish it was $19.51).

Holy cow, they've also got 1926.

London cabbies who hold The Knowledge experience changes to their brains that are explained in every Neurobiology for Babies course. It’s a wickedly difficult skill: rather than the pizza delivery people in the OP, starting in one defined zone (pizza place) and radiating out from there, a cabbie starts a route in any position and has to navigate across a partially-medieval city with no grid pattern, deranged place names, and not many bridges across a very large river. It would be useless to refer to a paper map, so cabbies were required to have all the Knowledge memorized. This means that the paths and optimized routes would have to be at the top of one’s brain, ready for instant access. As a result, the cabbies develop materially different brain regions as they study and use the Knowledge. They have detectable, measurable changes in their hippocampi, with an increase in grey matter forming in those who pass the Knowledge test and use it.

When asked to navigate a route between two points, they describe the mental process as instantaneous and explosive visuals: it sounds as if the map generates itself behind their eyes. (One potential tradeoff, though, is the decrease in associated brain matter in areas associated with other forms of memory.) After retiring, the brains of London cabbies would appear to return to “normal” - when not exercised, the brain region dedicated to holding the Knowledge seemingly rewires itself - which is exciting because it indicates that brains are still capable of rewiring and adaptation even in later life.

That’s all very interesting for neuroscientists, which is why it’s in all the textbooks and underpins a lot of our understanding of brain plasticity (adaptability) especially in old age. After all, it’s only ever adults who go through this process: babies rarely do a PhD in becoming a human Google Maps.

Some science-fiction series, like Dune, have explored the idea of no-longer-human navigators. still, it’s under-explored. Today, researchers are interested in seeing how London cabbie brains could help with Alzheimer’s research, or other progressive brain conditions that deteriorate the hippocampus.

Now, this was some time ago mind you, before The Culture War turned to trans women, but still.

Meanwhile, she remarked that people would say "nice dress, dude" to her in places like San Francisco, failing entirely to consider that... maybe she just wants to be a woman?

It's fascinating how there's whole forms of transphobia expressly available only to "supportive" circles, and how much of it is just misogyny (not transmisogyny, necessarily, just plain old "women-are-inferior" misogyny) repackaged as "nonbinary acceptance".

and if too many of the things you want to have sex with are in the pink zone of this triangle you score low.

After setting up a rudimentary website for CARP, the satirical, but still real company was offered a $15 million package of medical debt for $60,000.

Oliver explained that the debt was out of statute, which means it is the kind of debt that a collector can only continue to collect, but not sue the debtor for.

RIP Medical Debt is a charity (and therefore takes donations). They buy the rights to medical debt and then forgive them. So far they’ve forgiven over 1B in medical debt.