The Badger's Smial

So Boston is straight up running out of beer because of all the Scottish tourists in for the World Cup

I love cultural exchange

TIL that in medieval times trebuchets were sometimes used during tournaments to bombard the watching ladies with roses, and there is something so inherently comedic about this to me. picture me blasting roses at my lover's window with the force of a battlefield assault to win her hand

I think a lot of people would benefit from unlearning the idea that casual sex is inherently disgusting, harmful, or immoral just because they personally don’t want to partake in it. You can stand up for sexual safety and consent without acting like people who enjoy fucking strangers are degenerates. I take no issue with anyone asserting boundaries or stating that they’re not interested in certain kinds of sex or even sex as a whole. But when you condemn or express disgust at others for engaging in consensual sex, that’s when you start to sound like a puritan.

Btw, this includes self-proclaimed “feminists” who shame and lecture women for giving men “access” to their bodies. Bodies are not commodities and sex is not inherently transactional. You don’t lose anything by having sex on purpose with a person you find attractive. Sex is not some metaphysically transformative thing that bonds you to the other person forever. It is literally not that deep.

it is of course easier to performatively ban children from social media than to do things like "actually challenge and regulate the abusive tactics tech companies use to extract people's data and money via social media" but if we did the second thing we wouldn't have any excuse to force people to use digital ID :(

I'm pretty sure that as much as anything this skill boils down to frustration tolerance. I see people melting down at the first sign of needing to search for instructions all the time. Teaching them to get through it becomes as much about teaching them to handle the emotional experience of not knowing as anything else.

Another reason why trains would be good is that most people are not good at driving

isn't it kind of crazy that for any moving vehicle you need to wear a seatbelt but then on buses they're just like fuck it stand up whatever