(Mostly) not a tech blog

Someone on one of my social media outlets shared an UpWorthy article. I'm glad they did, otherwise I wouldn't have the opportunity to learn something I didn't know or understand. The original article I am talking about is here: https://www.upworthy.com/its-black-breastfeeding-week-if-you-wonder-why-this-gut-punching-poem-offers-one-reason If you do not have time to read it, the primary concern of the article is the relationship between the U.S.'s long history of oppression of black Americans, breastfeeding and family. The centerpiece is this poem: I wish I dried up I wish every drop of my milk slipped passed those pink lips and nourished the ground Where the bones lay…

I still find it endlessly amusing that I can now walk into a kitchen and home cook a good meal that my family enjoys without much thought or effort. Seriously, there are so many places I put up the dumb artificial barriers that tell me I have some limitation or another. I went through this with drawing, and while I’m no Bob Ross, I learned enough quickly enough to understand that I could probably become a surprisingly descent cartoonist. I also learned it doesn’t bring me the kind of joy that I am motivated by. Cooking though, seeing my family…

Brock Turner, that smarmy shit covered bag of dicks, is a rapist. His dad is an entitled asshole. And the judge overseeing the case is a negligent poocanoe. Brock’s victim though; she is brave. She is strong. And she overcame the worst examples of our legal system this side of “unarmed PoC shot to death by cops that are never prosecuted”. She also has a book coming out. https://www.thecut.com/2019/06/the-survivor-from-the-brock-turner-case-is-writing-a-memoir.html We should all buy a copy. Why? First that helps make sure Brock Turner stays on the public mind and that people don’t forget that he is a rapist. Second... it…

You know, when I was young, I remember seeing this episode in first-run. Like the best of Science Fiction, be it Rod Serling or Gene Roddenberry or Jordan Peele or Seth MacFarlane, the episode was a thin layer of futuristic science spread across a large surface of moral, ethical and human drama. As a young nerdling, I paid attention. The lessons of these things sunk in. Especially Barclay. While I had periods of my life that I didn't feel like I fit in, the types of struggles with social anxiety that this character experiences is quite foreign to me.

I have a friend that recently came out as transgendered. She had spent some time exploring her inner gender identity in private and found the courage to liberate herself and publicly declare the truth in her soul. I am proud to know someone this strong. It has triggered some strong feelings of guilt and shame in myself though. In the year before Xavier died, he had begun to wear women’s clothing. Not out, but just trying them on around the house. He got ahold of a wig and completed a look. In hindsight, this was a decade or more in…

Almost done, just need to tighten these last two fittings then plug in the lines... Said me, five seconds before he went to look for his extractor kit... Also, for anyone that understands what the photo and text means, I am accepting sympathy in the form of beer.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html The "GNU Kind Communications Guidelines" is the sort of document you wouldn't expect someone deep into the depth of modern software to produce, but Richard Stallman doesn't care about expectations. He simply believes in working together as a community to solve problems. He is perhaps one of the most influential people in the world, and yet I bet almost nobody knows who he is. There have been some recent big discussions about shitty interpersonal behavior online within Open Source projects. The founder and leader of Linux, Linux Torvalds recently stepped down (and then back up) in order to…

Examples of what is wrong with this country. They refer to her as Mrs. Ford or Christine Ford. They refer to him as Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Why are they keeping his title, but choosing to drop her title? She is Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Phd, and a standing professor at many of the greatest schools in our nation. She earned her title, it's absolutely grotesque to choose to drop it.

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062748203 July 9, 1860. The very last Atlantic slave ship landed in Mobile Bay. Carrying in their numbers of stolen flesh was Cudjo Kazoola Lewis. Thought to be one of the older abducted slaves on the ship at the approximate age of 19 or 20, he lived through until 1935. Born a free African man and stolen into American slavery, this is one of many stories that define how our nation got to where it is today. The good and the bad, the glorious bright highs and the lowest of human depravity. We invented a system of capital that ate…

The 2016 school year, 4th grade, was devastatingly difficult for Charlie. I watched my son shrivel away from life a little bit each day. It was one of the hardest events to witness, like a slow death of my most loved person on Earth. I don’t think Charlie changed, but rather the world around him did. Kids grew a little between years, and the demands on his ability to cope with stressors expanded exponentially. 4th grade wasn’t a line in the sand, but rather a tipping point of a growing difficulty navigating the world. Behaviors that where small idiosyncrasies of…