Everyone is surprising me by getting engaged, and I haven’t even started dating.  What is going on.  All these people need to have open bars at their weddings in which I can drown my sorrow and embarrassment at showing up alone.

lexcanroar:

nnmrlvs:

fffricative:

Kony 2012 spray painted on a 1889 memorial for the victims of the Boston Massacre

god this is just so shitty

Fig. 1: A failure to understand the difference between activism and vandalism.  How upsetting.  I can’t even say “at least they had good intentions,” because no one who has engaged in any sort of thoughtful discourse would perform this asshattery.

(Source: thestatureofliberty)

yslcageheels:

preservearchives:

When Records Get Dirty

Over the past four years, Preservation Programs in St. Louis has been dealing with a few extremely nasty problems—namely, mold infestation and bird guano.

Some of the mold was related to the 1973 fire, at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC). Other areas had leaks that developed after the 6th floor was demolished (because it had burned), and the fire suppression and pipe systems had to be re-adjusted.

But how did the bird guano get into the records? St. Louis is known for its extremely hot and humid summers, and in our old building many of the non-archival records storage areas weren’t climate controlled. The staff members frequently opened the windows (removing the screens, for some reason), and in flew the birds. You can guess the rest. We found nests. We found feathers. We even found eggs.

We didn’t want to bring these contaminated records to our clean, new, archivally climate-controlled building. We received funding to have most of them—12,372 boxes’ worth—sent away to be gamma radiated, at a cost of nearly $1.5 million.

But first we had to survey all of the boxes. We found 14,719 cubic feet of moldy records and 8,200 cubic feet of boxes with guano in them. The preservation technician in the above photo didn’t actually treat the records; the guano-infested boxes were hauled away for cleaning by movers in full hazmat suits. Techs weren’t even allowed to touch the guano boxes, so that we didn’t spread contaminated material during the survey.

Thankfully, the project is nearly over. And while there is still more work to be done, we were able to make the records safe to handle for future use.

Gee, I know this is like, one of your personal nightmares (bird guano! mold! whatever the eff those shiny things in the picture are! GROSS!) but I can so imagine being one of the student interns who had to help inventory the weird, scary, untouched-for-a-billions-years boxes I had to reblog.

Oh my.  How does this even happen?  Yes, they explain how it happened, but how do you just leave 12,000 boxes in a room with open windows and assume everything will be okay?  I cannot.  I know this is going to sound extremely unprofessional, but like, fuck this shit, seriously.

gabydunn:

Part of me thinks it’s too soon to be writing about this because I don’t think I’ve completely processed how I feel, but I also think maybe this has happened to other women and I should talk about it in as raw a way as possible. I’m still really embarrassed and ashamed and garbled up inside, but maybe this can start a helpful discussion in terms of women and comedy.

Last night, I was on a stand up show in the East Village. The show started out with a small crowd and the host did an amazing job interacting with them and riling them up. By the time I got on stage, there were about 20 or so more people in the audience and the place had really filled up. The show was still kind of loose because of the back and forth between the host and the audience, so when I got on stage, I riffed a bit about the stuff that had happened before and then talked to one guy on the side of the audience who the host had dubbed “Banana Republic.” All joke-y. All in good fun.

Then, I start my actual set and do my first two jokes, which go pretty okay. I start another joke that is vaguely sexual - not crude, not crass - mainly silly and that goes well too. The next joke I do is about my boyfriend.

At a comedy show, when you’re on stage, usually you can’t see the audience because of the bright lights. So I’m looking into pitch darkness. As I start the joke, someone yells, “Does your boyfriend know?” referring to the sexuality joke I’d just told. I stop, laugh and say that he does because I think it’s just more of the loose environment that’s been going on at this show. I attribute it to an audience member just having fun.

I start to tell the joke about my boyfriend again, and at the midway point, the same voice yells something else derogatory about my boyfriend, homophobic and misogynistic towards me. I stop, confused. I can’t see who is talking to me so I make a HUGE mistake and say, “Sir, if you’re gonna talk to me, you need to come to the front because I can’t see you.” I think calling him out like this will shut him up.

Read More

realemotionx:

hostilities:

bellafaim:

In a radical privacy policy shift, Google announced today that it will begin tracking users across all services—email, Search, YouTube and more—sharing information with no option to opt out. The change was announced in a blog post today, and will go into effect March 1.

For what little it’s worth (and not entirely related to this particular privacy issue), you can install a target-ad opt-out extension for your browser here.  We shouldn’t have to opt out of information tracking in the first place, but this is a start.  Perhaps we should all start surfing in Anonymous mode?

Can someone please explain to me why this is evil? What are we doing that is soooo important or bad that Google shouldn’t know about it. I really appreciate targeted ads, it means less “PENIS ENLARGEMENT” in ad boxes around the web.

Google is just mediocre at this point.  

From an information retrieval standpoint, this means Google will start tailoring what it offers you in searches and suggestions to what it thinks you seek.  Understanding a user’s information need is a tricky business.  In reference service, librarians (like me!) are trained to promote access to resources through a reference interview and make sure a user has a wide array of options to fulfill that information need without hindering their search or available resources.  Knowledge is power, as they say.  

A set of algorithms set by a corporation shouldn’t be doing that job for us based on our web history; it’s a conflict of interest.  My Google search shouldn’t be modified by the fact that some company has a sponsored result that I once happened to click on, for example.

This, you guys, is why Google does not replace libraries.

bellafaim:

In a radical privacy policy shift, Google announced today that it will begin tracking users across all services—email, Search, YouTube and more—sharing information with no option to opt out. The change was announced in a blog post today, and will go into effect March 1.

For what little it’s worth (and not entirely related to this particular privacy issue), you can install a target-ad opt-out extension for your browser here.  We shouldn’t have to opt out of information tracking in the first place, but this is a start.  Perhaps we should all start surfing in Anonymous mode?

just found out this heinous b from college is engaged.  she was one of those people who is always a cesspool of disease (think patti from awkward black girl), was unattractive & had a bad attitude.  she had to one-up everyone.  my mom joked that she has finally one-upped me.  

(Source: anchoredinfinites)

I need to be excited about this. Right now I’m just frustrated.

itshotasballs.jpg

Do you ever just look in the mirror and think, what the fuck?  

pilates.