Untitled (bc I'm not an aristocrat)

OP: I accidentally wandered into a scenic spot at night right before they turned off the lights, and it triggered my megalophobia. It really looked just like the backrooms. (cr幸运Sally) (This location is the food court at Yangshuo Romance Park. The footage is 100% real on-location shooting, with zero special effects or post-editing of any kind.)

it’s a challenge

that WON’T potentially kill him

which is really in short supply lately.

Then we should try to live in a world where kids see shit they aren't supposed to on the internet and can be taught what to do when that happens, rather than a world where we've installed a massive surveillance apparatus to supposedly solve the problem and kids keep seeing shit they aren't supposed to on the internet anyway because every security measure has a workaround if you look hard enough. You cannot promote child safety by making a giant list of underage internet users and all their personal information that tech companies pinky promise to keep safe. You cannot realistically keep children off the internet in a world that is progressively built more and more around the internet and children's social lives outside of school and home are constantly curtailed. You cannot keep children safe by treating the ability to use computers in general as a forbidden fruit, because suddenly "browsing facebook or tumblr" and "sending pictures of yourself to strangers in DMs" are being treated as the exact same kind of taboo, and when you violate the first one and predictably don't get hurt as a result, the second one isn't going to set off the alarm bells that it should.

The issue I see, and the thing I’m concerned about, is that many parents still do not do their jobs. They don’t teach kids tech rules and they aren’t safe to talk to about bad stuff they saw online, and no one takes that seriously. “Just make a better world,” though I agree with you we should ALSO do that, doesn’t stop permissive parents or authoritarian abusers. I don’t see how having age verification on certain sites, especially ones that are actively predatory toward children like porn and social media sites, is much different from a liquor store making people show their IDs before buying alcohol. The laws could be reformed around it so it’s basically the same. I don’t know if this is what the OS aims to do, but I see both sides of the argument here.

It’s also why I side-eye anyone who’s against age verification for PornHub, especially those who are treating unfettered internet access for minors as some kind of human right and free speech issue. I’m concerned they will be targeted, and it’s easy to say “let’s create a world where kids see shit they aren’t supposed to and know where to go” when you aren’t the one dealing with your kids seeing CSAM, pornography, and other things. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say. But I would ban porn tomorrow if I could, so that’s where I’d be coming from.

I agree that some parents are falling down on the job. The solution is not to turn parents' roles over to the government and tech companies who have no personal stakes in protecting anybody and have already proven time and time again that they'll abuse any power they're given.

cheese sits on the toilet while we take showers, and i like to stand on my tip toes and draw his silhouette in the steam from a high angle, then stand back to see how warped it is from his actual shape

Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.

So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.

But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.

It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?

So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:

Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.

And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.

So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".

So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.

My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.

Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.

Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.

Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).

Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues

According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.

Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.

For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.

Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life

Aaand a close-up:

HEY HI HELLO THIS ONE'S MY FAVORITE

"What if Stratt didn't force Grace to go?" Then the Earth dies.

"What if Yao and Ilyukhina had survived?" Then they all would have died in space, not enough food to get to Earth or Erid

If the Taomoeba hadn't escaped then Grace would have never seen his best friend again. Returning to a world he loves but no longer recognizes.

If the stars weren't dying then Grace never would have met his best friend at all. Living content but alone.

Project Hail Mary is a hopeful story. It is a story of friendship and what it means to be brave. It's a story about saving the world.

because helen wants to be a storyteller, helen is meant to be a storyteller. helen wants to encode men’s lives in tapestry and eulogy. that’s how we see her when she’s left on her own: striving for domesticity and simplicity, not fame. she is, in homer, the ideal woman, not just beautiful but devoted to her family, modest and hardworking, and so very aware of the responsibility of carrying the memories of those who die.