In My Defense, I Wasn’t Lying. I Was Just Wrong.

This was a cold open to a youtube video and I am crying LOL

physically interfering with the cameras is highly effective but obviously it's not a type of activism that's accessible to everyone — so if like me you think warrentless surveillance is never ever ever a reasonable thing for a government to do, but you're also like me and can't personally climb camera poles to dismantle that shit:

check out the August 16-22 week of action!

do not get IR blocking fabric or thick wool to cover your nose and mouth

do not get IR blocking sunglasses since facial recognition has moved up to targeting and identifying the upper face

do not avoid having your phone or any bluetooth devices around these cameras as they can detect and track those signals

do not buy cheap green lasers 1 milliwatt or above from etsy or walmart or amazon (i will not try and find a link if you ask)

do not use them to fry those fuckers from a distance damage the delicate inner sensors by pointing the beam in the lenses

AND unless you want to cost Flock more money in repairs, do not buy a small circle saw or a reciprocating saw and cut down the pole

OR do not climb said poles, spray paint on the solar panels, cover the lens with paint or a sticker, then use bolt cutters to sever the wires

when doing all these things, DO NOT avoid using latex gloves as fingerprints can leak through

DO NOT USE DEFLOCK TO FIND FLOCK SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS NEAR YOU

remember, flock is for YOUR safety :) even though crime rates have not gone down since they were implemented, they're being abused to track down exes and s/os, and many face pools or houses or schools or gymnasiums! Where there are no liscence plates to be found!

DO NOT DO THESE THINGS and enjoy a life under surveillance!

enjoy living in the country where 87,000 of these cameras were used to track down a woman who got an abortion!

enjoy living in the country where there's no consequences for a flock exec to watch a inside of a gymnastics place without their knowledge!

Remember, this is their American Dream.

Not like, in relation to other published books, mind you, but normal for something a queer person on tumblr who likes Terry Pratchett and video games where you get to fuck the werebear in full shift and The Murderbot Diaries would write.

Anyway, I've said before that my idea of a good indie movie (this also applies to other media) is one that panders shamelessly to a audience so niche it has most critics muttering, "Who is this even for?!" and I think this book accomplished that.

Weird, sure. But internally consistent!

I LOVED the “in which …” chapter titles. I’ve seen those used for humor before, but these are both funny and give fascinating emotional background to each chapter. Mostly it’s a small emotion that’s highlighted, but it adds so much depth to what happens next. Here’s the prologue title for example:

I also loved the way the tone of the book shifted rather gently from “this is a comedy“ to “this is a horror novel“. I don’t know that it actually was a horror novel? Definitely speculative fiction. Maybe horror lite? Too much of a happy ending for horror, but too far from Happy Ever After to be traditional comedy. But that inability to nail down “who is this book for“ is part of it charm! 

The emotional drift of the story is Very Compelling. The slow breakdown of losing everything to get the one thing you want - and how that is happens differently for The Mad Sorcerer and for Sir Cameron. The grasping at bits of joy in the midst of chaos and confusion. The getting everything you wanted and it being confusing and different from what you pictured.

-

Sure they ain’t picnicking at a public hanging anymore but you seen how many more missing posters there’s been the past few years in particular right? How so many Black and Brown children are just fuckin disappearing too and never making anything more than a Facebook missing post?

Yes. Mainly by law enforcement or people working with them. We watch us disappear into human trafficking and mass graves and we can do literally nothing about it besides hope one of our loved ones wasnt one of them when we get news they’ve disappeared.

The law doesn’t exist to protect Black people, it exists to kill us.

So for those of you not familiar with my recent descent into fishkeeping, about 2 months ago a friend of mine who does Hazardous Waste cleanup (specifically cleaning up hazardous places like meth labs) called me up and asked:

"You have fish, right?"

"...Why?" I asked, having become aware that the Fish Distribution System is even more aggressive than the cat one.

"I found a fish in the back of an abandoned trap house. Alive." She clarified.

I could feel my fate settling upon my soul.

"...Send me a pic so I can ID the species and I'll see what I can do."

She sent me a picture of a small purplish squiggle in six inches of fetid green muck. But when I arrived to collect the sludge creature he turned out to look like this:

He's difficult to photograph in focus, but he's a deep wine-dark creature with an iridescent blue sheen. The red patches on his fins mirror where the fins of a Plakat/wild Betta splendens would be, and the rest of his fins are a ghostly shimmering white. This fish was in six inches of toxic green shit.

Naturally, he needed the finest tank I could put together that afternoon.

I think I did alright.

He's so fucking cute. He always swims up to watch when anyone approaches. I've got him trained to do a little dance when I feed him. He likes watching me doing anything in front of his tank.

That's all actually pretty typical of Bettas- they're very intelligent and curious creatures and like learning, which is more than I can say for some of my relatives.

Where Upstairs Kevin (so named because his tank is in my upstairs bathroom) really shines is that a lot of Bettas are... Not sociable. They often eat shrimp, attack other fish in their tank (or get stressed out of they can't commit enough violence to maintain their personal space) or constantly harass and nip the snails in their tanks. Most Bettas are genuinely happier being alone.

Kevin fucking loves his snail (Bluebert) and will shimmy as fast as he can over whenever Bluebert falls off something (it's fine, this is a normal way for mystery snails to get from one place to another).

When I had my Nego D'Aguas in the holding tank, I had to put three of the smallest ones in with him because they were being harassed in the small tank, and he was a perfect gentleman with them. He was trying very hard to shoal with them, but they're very zippy. He was visibly upset (lethargic, dulled colors) when I moved them back to the big tank.

Today was the real acid test: I'm going to move him from his 5 gallon to the 10 gallon so I can use the 5 as a hospital/spare plants tank, and I needed to know if I could have shrimp in with him. Even Betta that are cool with other fish can still see a shrimp and decide they're at the buffet. Unfortunately, there's no real way to know without putting shrimp in with the Betta.

So earlier today, I got half a dozen super-discounted Rilli shrimp (LFS has a massive overstock of them for some reason) and added them to his 5 gallon. There are a bunch of hiding places for shrimp in there and if he was aggressive with them I'd move him to the 10 gallon immediately (I don't want to do that just yet because I need to move the furniture around in there a bit).

Friends.

The shrimp are fully swimming in the open and Kevin is just following them around, curious, but only curious. No gill-flaring, no posturing, no lunges or snapping. Some of them are red, a color that normally triggers aggression in Bettas, and he's just. Hanging out, watching them eat biofilm off the moss. One of them accidentally landed on his head and stayed there for 3 seconds and he only went "???" Until it took off again.

They're both so curious about each other.

Guild: -chilly silence-

President: so the challenge to you all is a quilt with your interpretation and/or feelings towards our current “democracy”

Guild: 👏👏👏

How I spent my July 4th.

At the start I thought stitching “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” for the last quarter would be therapeutic

I was correct.

I have one more line of embroidery and I think it needs to be bolder and messier than I started it.

Hard to tell in this light, and without ironing it, that the embroidery does get gradually bolder as it goes. Two strands at the top versus 5 at the bottom (6 for the started to be redone final line).

Not bad for first time doing appliqué.

"Networking" doesn't have to feel like one big huge façade of manipulation and lies. You just find people you like. The things you talk about don't even have to be related, you just gotta find people who you like working with who you might reach out to for questions or projects later.

You don't need to look professional and respectable or like a "real" adult. I like to just show up and make it clear I'm receptive to jokes and quirks and weird ideas, and the people who vibe with that usually come to me.

Introduce people you like to other people you like. Talk them up. You can tell your boss "This is Mike he kicks ass, he knows everything about this place, if you want to know something talk to him, if he ever quits we're stealing him"

I found can't think of a polite or socially normal way to say something, sometimes you can just say it like "I don't know if this is dumb or not but I don't know anything about this. Can you explain what you mean?", or "I was taught something different. Should I change how I've been doing it?". I've never had a negative reaction to this.

When in doubt, ask a weird question. "What's your favorite dessert food" is a p good one. Sometimes folks think I'm childish but at least they know what they're getting into and they know I'm not judging them.

Sometimes when higher-ups approach me with a stiff upper lip I'll test the waters with a "is your job as insane as it sounds" or something similar to remind them that I, a worker performing a role, and speaking to them, a worker performing a role. If they give a stiff and measured answer I stay distant and professional. If their performance cracks and their tone changes or they smile or laugh or give a funny reply I know I can relax and joke a bit too.