The problem is that this advice was made up by no-one. It’s like that perennially relevant IBM memo that says something like “A computer cannot be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision”

I love how affectionate this comic is. I’m really feeling for the old laptop, but I’m feeling the appreciation and understanding from the human

What it’s meant to mean is “yay us! We’re doing inclusivity!”

What it actually means, to me, is “we will make a show of valuing disabled people, but we won’t go so far as to actually include them in the design process, thereby making this bench an artifact to our own self congratulation, as well as making wheelchair users feel excluded in a far more insidious way than they already did”.

And I feel like an asshole to say it like that, but it’s so annoying to see well intentioned people fall at literally the first hurdle. Like, if they truly do see us as people who have intrinsic value that means we are worth including, then they also need to see us in our full personhood and include us in the process. The alternative is that their enthusiasm will just cause more money to be pissed down the drain on symbolic gestures that don’t fulfill their intended purpose

I can appreciate the thought, because as a part time wheelchair user, it does often wear me down when I feel like I’m perpetually perched on the periphery of any conversation.

However, like you say, this is just far too impractical for most people. I have a small, active wheelchair, and even that would probably put me in front of friends sitting on the bench beside me.

However, I can totally believe that this was made in earnest. I’ve seen some ridiculous “accommodations” that are ostensibly for disabled people that just show that the able bodied designer just didn’t involve any disabled people in the design process at all. And that’s why “nothing about us, without us” is a long used slogan used by disability rights campaigners.

If anyone wants to see an example of good accessibility design, I love how they designed the packaging for the Xbox Accessible Controller. They included lots of people with varied needs across multiple stages of the design process, and it really shows. And the end product is so elegantly functional. I like this quote from Solomon Romney, a “Microsoft Retail Stores retail learning specialist”:

"The whole thing sort of blossoms open in this really beautiful, fluid way. The package just sort of opens and hands you the controller. What’s wonderful about it is the effortlessness.”

I hate it because it fails to help me, but that’s because for me, learning how to write better code is as important as actually producing good code, if not more so. Relevant context is that my background is in the sciences, and whilst nowadays, I’m increasingly more of a programmer than a biochemist, I still very much feel like a learner.

It’s a shame it’s a secret, because this looks delicious!

If you can’t divulge the recipe, perhaps you could share a general tip or two for someone trying to make something similar?

Windows update will frequently reenable OneDrive. Microsoft systematically undermines people ability to understand and control their own device.

I would probably step out of the way of the trolley, but I admit that I would hesitate.

If you saw my hesitation and if I was doing okay, I would say that I’m doing as well as I can be, under the circumstances. I am fortunate to have good people in my life. When things get to be a lot, connections with people I care about helps keep me grounded.

The world often feels so awful that I feel hopeless. I also often feel awful, sometimes due to the world, sometimes due to brain weasels scurrying around in my head. But in the end, I figure that if I am someone who is able to see all the bad stuff that’s happening as bad, then that suggests that I am probably a force for good, however small that may be. At least I can see the problem.

If I died, there would be one less person who understands that things need to change. My resolve is weak and weary, but it endures. As long as it does, I would step off the tracks and give the gun to someone responsible asap.

Edit: I know that the meme is a commentary on the recent murder of Renee Nicole Good. I was just waxing poetic on my own mostly-managed despair, which certainly is relevant to the topic of ICE’s crimes. It’s an interesting contrast: ICE would shoot the driver, whilst the rest of us are left to battle the dread that causes some of us to contemplate willingly falling to the trolley. That’s why I’m trying to stick around — because if I let myself die, then that’s just another injustice in the world.

The thing with Trump is that he has no reason to want to kill the heads of organised crime. He benefits from cartel violence because it helps him to rhetorically justify US imperialism, so he has no reason to eradicate them.

If the US invades Mexico, the cartels will scatter like cockroaches to take shelter from the action, and then in the aftermath, they will leverage their efficient organisational infrastructure to cement their power even further. If the US invades Mexico, there is no way that this ends well for the Mexican people.

To Trump and his ilk, you look the same as any cartel member — except you’re a lot easier to kill.

I linked it in a top level comment, but if you’re someone who likes watching long, thoughtful video essays, this is an excellent one on the precise topic of your comment, from one of my favourite science communicators

Ooh, an opportunity to share a video from one of my favourite science communicators, the inimitable Dr Fatima (an ex-astrophysicist): “Einstein Was a Socialist; Should We Care?” (Duration: 1h16)

Your rage makes me feel seen. I share your feelings.

I’m glad to hear it. Thanks for sharing your perspective. When there’s so much bullshit and misinformation about, I find it grounding to hear perspectives like yours. The insight of one person can only provide a small slice of the true reality of things, but what feels significant to me is that there is a kernel of immutable truth in perspectives such as yours.

I don’t know if that makes sense. I’m having a weird day, in which I seem to be more prone to waxing poetic about stuff than usual

No no, don’t you see, the act of the killing is how they identify people as guilty. It’s like wave function collapse in quantum physics — or “Schrödinger’s criminal” to put a pithy spin on it. Because the police only kill bad people who deserve to die, then anyone who is alive could be good or bad, but we don’t know for certain until the police kill them. If the police accidentally shot at a non-criminal, then they’d be fine — the non criminal body has ways of shutting that whole thing down

(I really should have to say this, but the internet is dark and full of bootlickers, so /s)

Indeed, and non-citizens aren’t entitled to due process, apparently. And I can’t imagine how many citizens must’ve been deported due to being denied the opportunity to show that they are citizens. Lawyers have been finding it super difficult to stay in contact with the clients even when they’re being held in detention in the US. It’s fucking terrifying

It might depend on how we define “good faith”, but I think some of them are probably posting in good faith — though good intentions don’t negate the harm they do, of course. I get the sense that some of the people trying to incite violent action are feeling overwhelmed and powerless due to being so far away from what is happening. I say this as someone who isn’t an American, and thus can only spectate with horror as American politics continues going to hell, with ripple effects on the rest of the world.

It’s easy to rile people up when it’s not your neck on the line though. However uncomfortable it is to be spectating what’s happening in the US, you guys have it much worse. It would be nice to imagine that this is the kind of thing that could be solved through one, big push of violent resistance, but with how deep MAGA cronies have gotten their talons into US politics, resistance will necessarily require thinking of the long game. Violent resistance, when deployed unwisely, can end up serving the ends of the oppressor.

I hope that you never find yourself opposite an asshole cop who doesn’t care whether you actually pose any danger to them.

I would never have made the connection without reading your comment, but once I read it, I almost spat out my coffee.

Something that especially resonates with my experience is that my optometrist advised practicing holding my eye open for contacts without trying to put anything near my eye, because even before I tried putting in the contacts, my upper lid kept trying to close , and that made it harder to hold my lids in the correct position.

Man, this made me laugh. I feel like I’ve mentally saved away your original comment, because some day, there will be an opportunity to make this comparison to someone else who will find it as hilarious as I did.

You can start practicing just with your fingers — I find it easiest with two. Put your fingers in your mouth as far back as you can without gagging, and leave them there for a few moments, breathing through your nose. It’s important that you don’t go so far as to make yourself gag — I’ve heard that this can actually strengthen your gag reflex, so go slowly.

I found the breathing the most challenging part of it, so practicing with my fingers in this way helped a lot with that. Doing this every day made a huge difference after only a week or two. A big tip that I’d give is that you shouldn’t take a big breath in before trying to deep throat — in hindsight, that’s something that I would often do, and it made things harder. What actually got me started practicing this was that I saw someone who could go all the way down and basically hold a large cock in their throat for an extended time — far longer than one could do in one breath. That made me realise that I needed to focus on being able to calmly breathe through my nose at a regular rate.

If you want to move to something larger, a softer jelly dildo can be useful to practice on, I’ve heard, but I found that practicing with fingers was sufficient.

When you’re actually going down on someone, note whether their penis has a curve to it, as many does. When I had a partner who had an upwards curve, I found that I needed to approach it from the direction of their stomach (so either lounging on the bed beside them, or straddling their chest). A downward curve makes it much easier to approach from below, which is convenient if you’re kneeling and your partner is standing.

I also found it useful to actively try to relax my throat muscles. It was hard for me to know what a relaxed throat felt like at first, which meant that I found exercises like this helpful. I also found that when I was being too ambitious when practicing with a partner, my throat muscles becamenless relaxed. That’s why I found it useful to practice with fingers: I had as much time as I needed to practice until things became automatic, rather than having to worry about putting on a titillating performance for a partner.

An auxiliary tip that’s useful in general for blowjobs is that you can use your hands to sort of simulate deep throating by stimulating the base of the penis at the same rhythm as what your head is moving at. This also makes it easier to gradually working up to taking more of the penis in your throat, in your own time (the last thing most people want is to end up puking on their partner, after all)

That may be true, but given that doctors are better equipped to understand the changing landscape of medical knowledge, it’s wisest to take medication as prescribed