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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • For me it’s the scale and perspective that stood out first. Both people are the same size on-screen but the one on the right is also supposed to be closer so they’re actually huge, but they also have a tiny chair. Both chairs are also pointed away from the TV which is as big as a person, but they’re also somehow not facing each other so the closer person still has to turn around. The seat on the left would have to be pushed right up against the wall but they somehow managed to fit a lamp behind it too.

    It just feels very strange as someone with first-hand experience of 3d space.



  • Most people think they’re middle class and it’s easy to punch down, that’s really all there is to it.

    When I was young I remember asking my parents “are we rich or poor?” and I was told we were middle class, it stands out because at the time I didn’t know what that meant. Looking back we were absolutely working class. We were in one of the worst parts of the city and literally just the corner was a street well known for gang violence and crime. The one time I called the cops after being attacked there when they arrived they made sure they were parked in view of security cameras and even called to have sure the cameras were on then and working. Also the only “help” they have was telling me to do it because it wasn’t worth the effort.
    We were only slightly better off than everyone else living there, we actually owned our home when many of them were in council housing.






  • “Jaywalking” is mostly a US thing made up by car companies to victim-blame pedestrians when they were killed by cars so they could avoid regulation themselves. Where I am we were taught very early in school how to safely cross a road safely, and pedestrians waiting to cross or already crossing a road generally have right of way even when no signals exist. It’s only an issue in backwards countries where cars have more rights than people and cities are designed for them instead.

    I cross without a signal daily because otherwise I’d have to walk all the way around the block to get to a crossing going the opposite direction from where I’d want to go then find a way to circle all the way back at other crossings. That would make leaving the house more than a little inconvenient, especially since everything I’d need is in walking distance so I rarely drive. To my knowledge I have not been killed by a car a single time.

    Edit: Thanks for the downvote, doesn’t change the facts.

    The very word jaywalk is an interesting—and not historically neutral—one. Originally an insult against bumptious “jays” from the country who ineptly gamboled on city sidewalks, it was taken up by a coalition of pro-automobile interests in the 1920s, notes historian Peter D. Norton in his book Fighting Traffic. “Before the American city could be physically reconstructed to accommodate automobiles, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where cars belong,” he writes. “Until then, streets were regarded as public spaces, where practices that endangered or obstructed others (including pedestrians) were disreputable. Motorists’ claim to street space was therefore fragile, subject to restrictions that threatened to negate the advantages of car ownership.” And so, where newspapers like the New York Times once condemned the “slaughter of pedestrians” by cars and defended the right to midblock crossings—and where cities like Cincinnati weighed imposing speed “governors” for cars—after a few decades, the focus of attention had shifted from marauding motorists onto the reckless “jaywalker.”

    Tom Vanderbilt, Slate.com



  • The employer must offer a minimum of 28 days for full time workers but bank holidays and other company shutdowns can count towards that. It’s a bit more flexible that way, it means it doesn’t matter which public holidays (if any) your company observes everyone gets the same minimum time off. It also allows situations like my company where our only UK office is in Scotland but UK employees still follow English holidays instead.


  • Queer is a reclaimed umbrella term for any non-cis or non-hetero relationship. If two men were in a relationship they might consider themselves queer. It’s not really a word you’d ascribe to other people, it’s self-descriptive.

    A man and woman in a relationship is a hetero relationship, if one or both are trans or gender non-confirming they may consider themselves queer. It’s with noting that a hetero relationship does not necessarily mean they’re straight either, bi or pan people often date the opposite gender.

    I wouldn’t normally consider a non-monogamous relationship queer by default, otherwise anyone who cheats would be queer.

    Since it’s a reclaimed slur the best move is to not use it at all unless the person you’re talking about has made it clear they’re comfortable being described that way by you.