I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.
-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a
~*Spiritual Experience*~
I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.
Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.
He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only BARELY enough space for the fireworks and certainly none for his truck.
So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.
He begins, and this is crucial to what happens next, by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it unsecured on his lawn.
I’ve seen seen some really long one shots and thought it should’ve been broken up into smaller chapters before, but I’m curious what you guys think so-
At what point do you think a one shot is considered too long and should be broken up into chapters?
Wait what’s a buildings fire evacuation plan if you aren’t supposed to use the elevator to get down
You go down the stairwell/fire escape. Is that weird?
But what if you have a walker or a wheelchair??
in america at least, in this situation, there isnt one. either your loved ones or the firemen can get you out using the emergency fire escapes or stairs, or you die
That’s fucking horrific, thank you
“fun” little story:
last summer my friend who is an amazingly talented artist and i were in this super tall building, and she’s in a wheelchair and i’m pushing her around the room. it’s an art exhibit and some of her art was chosen to be showcased there and so it’s all fine and dandy until suddenly an alarm starts going off
a FIRE ALARM
everyone starts running for the stairs and my friend just looks at me with this forlorn look on her face
“i can’t go down the stairs”
but i’m a stubborn bitch “i’ll carry you”
“what about my chair? it’s too expensive for me to be able to get another one if i can’t get this one back”
“i’ll carry that too”
and i did. we went to the stairs (by then most people from our floor were gone) and i lifted her up in a fireman’s carry over my shoulder and then lifted her chair up and used the ridiculous amount of adrenaline that was coursing through my veins to make it down approximately 20 half-flights of stairs until we met some people exiting lower floors, one of which who kindly took the chair. I changed positions so i was holding my friend bridal-style which was, somehow, easier and the person who took her wheelchair (with her permission to handle it of course) accompanied me to the ground floor and then out the doors
basically there is no real protocol for people who can’t use the stairs in an emergency. it’s up to the people with them, if anyone, to help them or the person to somehow make it down the stairs alone, unassisted
thank fuck that it was just a faulty alarm system, because if i was unable to carry her down those stairs and the building was on fucking fire???? then i don’t know what would have happened to her, but i don’t think it would have been very good.
it’s fucking ridiculous and ableist to the absolute max.
I use a cane. When I did a day-long fire safety training at my northeast American university (UMass Amherst), I asked that exact same question: “what am I supposed to do if the fire alarm goes off and I’m in my lab on the twelfth floor?”
the fire marshal hemmed and hawed for a while and then said to take the elevator- you’re supposed to leave it free for the fire department to use and they want able-bodied people out fast not waiting for elevators. if the fire alarm has just gone off the building probably hasn’t suffered enough structural damage to make using the elevator dangerous, and modern elevator wells are heavily reinforced. many large and high-trafficked buildings on my campus have fire rated elevators that link in with the fire alarm system so they won’t let you off on a floor with a possible fire.
if the elevator isn’t working, wait in the stairwell and call the fire department to let them know where you are. modern stairwells are also heavily reinforced- it might not be pleasant but modern building code usually requires fire-resistant stairwell doors in office and big residential buildings, also to help firefighters get in and out safely. older buildings’ stairwells may or may not be retrofitted with fire-resistant doors but a stairwell is generally the safest place to wait if you can’t get out.
what happened to your friend was horrible, and i’m very glad you were there to help her out, but you can absolutely use the elevator to evacuate if it’s not shut down. those don’t-use-the-elevator rules are for abled people.
This is GOOD TO KNOW. why do they not tell people this??
Okay, firefighter here. If you are not physically able to use the stairs, and the elevator is NOT compromised, use the elevator. But you MUST be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the elevator is NOT compromised before you get into it, because there is always the chance that once you get into it, you may not exit it. Power could go out. The elevator may actually BE compromised and you just couldn’t tell from where you were until you were in there, and it suddenly shuts down on you. Something else could happen.
Understand that once you enter the elevator, you could POTENTIALLY be taking your life into your hands there.
It is NOT LIKELY, to be perfectly honest. It’s only in a pretty catastrophic scenario - think the Twin Towers, USA, on September 11th - that the elevators will be compromised and out of service. But there is a NOT ZERO PERCENT CHANCE and you need to understand that and accept it.
As for leaving the elevators free for the firefighters, okay, here’s the deal. Unless your nearest fire station is literally right next door? Your first on scene fire truck is NOT likely to be there on scene and needing that elevator before you get to the ground. It takes us TIME to find the address, gear up, and drive to the building. Then we need to hoof it into where the elevators even ARE, so YOU HAVE TIME to use the elevator to get down to the ground floor… BUT ONLY IF THERE’S NOT A RUSH ON THE ELEVATOR! And THAT is WHY we don’t tell people this shit. That’s WHY we tell people to NEVER USE THE ELEVATOR… because every self-entitled asshole will use it because they don’t feel like walking, and then put YOU in danger by delaying the elevator’s arrival to you.
IF, however, the elevator IS compromised, or you just can’t get it to come for you, or whatever, and you either don’t have anyone with you who has the adrenaline fueled BALLS to be able to toss you over their shoulder and hoof it down the stairs with you - because, let’s face it, that is RARE AS FUCK, then HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:
You call 911 and tell the call taker that you are in the building that has a fire alarm going off, and you are not able to evacuate because of a physical disability, and you tell them what floor you are on, and EXACTLY what stairwell you are waiting at. And the very FIRST thing that the firefighters are going to do once they arrive, if it is, indeed, a REAL emergency, and not a false alarm, is come get your ass and bring you down. Whether that means carrying you down the stairs, or whether that means locking out the elevators so that no one else can override them and coming to get you themselves, they WILL come get you FIRST THING if it is a real event. And if it is a false alarm? You will probably be the first person who is not involved with the building to know, because the call-taker is going to stay on the line with you until you are under someone’s care and out of danger, or until the scene has been sorted out as real or false, and you are out of danger that way.
These are pretty standard operations in the fire service throughout the United States. There may be some minor variations based on specific municipalities, but, for the most part, this is pretty typical: LIFE BEFORE PROPERTY. So, as long as SOMEONE knows where you are - hence why you call 911 - Firefighters will come get you. You are NOT alone, and you have NOT been abandoned. I PROMISE. It’s like, our whole reason for doing the shit we do: to save lives and to break shit. Sometimes, we get lucky enough to do both at the same time.
High rise fires suck ass, and I always hated them. But the very FIRST thing I asked anytime we got one was if we had “any entrapments” - which is what we call anyone who could not self-evacuate for ANY reason. We ain’t leaving you behind. And yes, your friend who doesn’t have the stamina to carry you down can stay with you, too. Because I would never ask that of someone, honestly.
Also, just a little FYI… MOST fire alarms are false alarms. Not to make anyone complacent or anything, but, yeah. Most of them are either system malfunctions, someone accidentally hit a pull station, or someone burned popcorn in a break room. So don’t let a fire alarm freak you out until you need it to - by smelling or seeing smoke or flames.
i have had multiple nightmares about this very thing because NOBODY BOTHERS TO ACTUALLY TELL WHEELCHAIR USERS THIS STUFF
When my mother forgets a word, she is the queen of coming up with new words. Words that would take a third National Treasure movie to fully decipher. I was talking to her yesterday, and she said this: “You know the time for los jibbities is coming up. You must be so excited!” Oh, is it time for los jibbities already? I must have missed it on my calendar. Are we celebrating something? “Of course! We should all be celebrating, shouldn’t we?” OK, so los jibbities is a happy thing. It’s not like something is giving you the heebie-jeebies, which would have been my one and only guess. “Los heebie-jeebies? Now you’re making things up...and this is my show.” You’re right. The time for los jibbities is coming up. Is this a season? “Yes, the season for love. The season for pride.” OK, los jibbities. “Yeah, sound it out.” Los…jibbities. LGBTs! “Sí, mira cuz you’re gay!” “You couldn’t just say pride season? You couldn’t just… *laughs*
I’m going to post something and I know it’s going to be controversial, but I need everyone to read to the end and see where I’m coming from here. Please read this carefully before you reply, because I know a knee jerk reaction to this will be negative.
We have got to stop saying that killing all sex offenders is okay. We have to stop with the “kill your local rapist uwu” crap.
Look, I’m a survivor. I get hating abusers. I would be fine if my abuser got hit by an eighteen wheeler. But this idea that all sex offenders should be killed is bad.
First, let’s look at the original reason behind the Sex Offender Registry (SOR). In 1989, Jacob Wetterling was murdered by a neighbor with a previous conviction for assaulting a child and because computers weren’t common yet, cops couldn’t easier check on the local pedophiles. The idea was to have a list of local offenders to check when similar crimes appeared. Makes sense, right?
But the SOR didn’t stay limited to violent offenders. It expanded to include anyone who committed a sex crime (we’ll get to what that means in a second). It also let civilians see who was on it, but not why. It became a way to prevent people from living near schools and denying people jobs. It created a homelessness problem and widespread vigilantism.
Second, let’s discuss what a sex crime is. It’s not synonymous with rape or assault. It’s not even synonymous with harassment. Sex crimes includes everything from having sex in public, sex work, public urination, and streaking, to violent crimes like assault and rape. Being on the SOR doesn’t say what the crime is so there’s just as much chance that a person did something stupid as someone being a full blown predator. This doesn’t matter to vigilantes. It means that someone who went streaking in college can’t live near schools even if they’re not a pedophile and have nothing to do with attacking kids.
What is and isn’t a sex crime is vague and that can be added to. Kentucky has made drag a sex crime. Florida and Texas made supporting transgender children and giving them medical care into a sex crime. Do we want transgender people to be on the SOR? Are we really threatening to kill those people because they live in the deep south?
Let’s not pretend that this hasn’t happened. A Tumblr user explained that her wife is on the SOR for hitting on a woman in a bar in the 1990s. She was arrested for soliciting. She wasn’t doing that but it didn’t matter. Homophobia won. Even after the law was changed and homophobia was officially stricken from the books after the Lawrence ruling, she remained on the registry. That brings me to my next point.
Third, the registry is forever. Yes, I believe that predators will always prey on people and usually can’t be reformed, but as I’ve said, not all of these people are predators. If you get caught for public urination because you’re blackout drunk in your twenties, you will be on the registry when you’re fifty. Getting off that registry is nearly impossible, even if your conviction is over turned. The woman I mentioned in the previous paragraph attempted to get off the list three times unsuccessfully.
Fourth, there are juveniles on the SOR for “child porn”, because they took pictures of themselves. The law is so strict that anyone caught with pictures of nude minors goes on the registry, even if the picture is of themselves and was taken consensually, or was a picture of a partner who was the same age. I think we can agree that sexting as a minor is a bad idea but minors still do it. Putting a sixteen year old on a permanent registry, preventing him from getting jobs or housing, because he took a dick pic is insane. This is the result of zero tolerance laws.
In a similar vein, people on the SOR are often unable to see their own children at schools or hospitals because they’re unable to be around kids. That would make sense for someone who is a known pedophile, but it doesn’t make sense for anyone who fits any other scenario. Again, we’re making it impossible for people who went streaking once to visit their own children in hospitals.
The sex offender registry takes people who have committed a variety of crimes (and some of those shouldn’t be crimes to begin with) and paints them all with the same brush. We can’t pretend that someone who has sex in public is equivalent to someone who has assaulted multiple people. They’re not comparable. The SOR was established to make it easier for police to solve crimes but it’s warped into way to brand people and make them easy marks for vigilantes. Saying we should kill everyone on that list is absurd.
This will get worse as more transphobic laws are added. Trans women will be marked as a predators for merely existing. Trans people who use the bathroom might be on a list forever. Parents who love and support their children will be labeled as sex offenders and unable to see not only their kids, but any child.
I know a lot of well intentioned liberals are saying things like “guillotine all sex offenders” and similar things as a way to counteract the lack of support survivors get and the number of people who manage to stay out of jail and offend again and again. I get it. I do. But this rhetoric is very right wing and it encourages the sort of violent attacks that the far right is famous for. The GOP, despite being the hard on crime party, encourages vigilantes. When a person is killed, it’s easy to dismiss their murder because they were a sex offender. We saw this with one of Kyle Rittenhouse’s victims. Was that man actually a pedophile? I don’t know. But his murder should be brought to justice regardless of anything else. Victims don’t stop being victims because the victim is a bad person.
This isn’t new. Multiple right wing governments, including the US, have labeled political dissidents as perverts to get away with harming them. Just look at the Lavender Scare led by Sen. McCarthy. The public doesn’t care if perverts and pedophiles get sent to prisons.
I am not saying we shouldn’t punish child abusers, harassers, and rapists. We should. But we have to really consider how flawed our justice system is and how many innocent people are on the SOR before we talk about killing everyone on it.
The people who are convicted of violent sex crimes, the ones that do the most harm, also don’t deserve to be on a public registry
The SOR is making people homeless because even if there are no zoning restrictions or they can find a place to live with restrictions, it’s hard to find a place to rent. It’s hard to find a job. No house no job, hard to do your check ins, hard to pay for your new license or whatever other fees they throw at you. Fail to show up or pay? Back to jail for you. Restrictions like these just perpetuate the prison system
I agree with everything said about how there are bullshit reasons people get put on these lists and people may even be innocent of any actual crime and still get on here
But action against “kill all rapists” mindsets needs to include the type of people you don’t have any sympathy for
This is also true. The existence of the SOR assumes that people can never change and doesn’t allow for change.
Restrictive probations are pretty much a way for the state to get money. That’s true for pretty much all probation.
downside: going to have to include a picture of the Giza pyramids in the slides for the lecture upside: i get to give people a crash course in why perspective matters in two frames, because
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followed by
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is such a funny sequence
i find most people who haven’t seen it in person don’t know that cairo is RIGHT THERE
I loved these perspectives so I took some of my own when I was in Cairo and yeah, they’re literally just. Right there. Pass em on your way to work, nbd
No, y'all don’t even understand.
There is literally a Pizza Hut across the street from the pyramids.
That Pizza Hut among other things is why Egyptologists laugh their asses off when we see another piece of media where the protagonists get “lost in the desert near the pyramids”, because it’s like… just turn around my dudes you’re only a seven min walk away from the nearest fastfood shop
in 2010, a camp counselor goon logged on to the somethingawful forums asking for help with the zipline he build from scratch, and with no engineering knowledge, that didn’t seem to be working right. when he tested it with a sandbag, it continued to gather speed during the entirety of the 143 foot drop (19 degree slope) until it slammed into the wooden platform at the bottom at a speed of 65mph, presumably creating a child paste that would have to be scraped off to be sent home. there were pictures.
groverhaus and the child-annihilating zipline are classics of post and we will never forget them
too bad the zipline isn’t as famous. the fucked-up bathroom has even gained more traction than the child-exploding summer camp zipline. there is no justice
i love this but DON’T denigrate the fucked up bathroom that’s a legend
I’m sorry, y’all are selling RIPline (The Machine to Kill Children) short, so I need to bring in YouTuber and generally amazing person Dan Olson in to sum this up for me
so many posts on so many different forums are about to break
In case you hadn’t heard…
“We will be focused on removing old, unused, and inactive content that is not tied to a user account from our platform as well as nudity, pornography, & sexually explicit content,” the page reads. “Most notably, this would include explicit/pornographic content.” Imgur notes that it will “employ automated detection software” alongside human moderators to identify explicit content.
Squidge is free, and has a TOS that’s about the same as AO3’s.
from a glance, Squidge looks promising..
HOWEVER it is hosted by ONE person?? what happens when that person dies, or their personal circumstances change??
Squidge is not a trustworthy long-term alternative.
Squidge.org has recently registered as a nonprofit, like the OTW. (I’m on the board.) (This is very new and very tiny.) https://www.squidgeworld.org/ is the first/only AO3 clone on the internet right now.
And there are agreements in place - if something disastrous happens to the owner, the OTW takes it over. (The OTW may not be able to do much with the image side of things. But they’ll be able to keep it stable.)
Squidge has been around over 20 years. It’s as stable as fan-run sites get. And he’s aware that it needs more stability than “I’ll keep the servers up,” so he’s recently made changes that allow for long-term viability.
Also: Like the OTW, he owns the servers. He’s not beholden to Amazon or Google’s TOS for content permissions.
He has a tumblr! @squidgiepdx if this is still you
Yep! Squidge.org has been run by me for 29 years (!!!). But now we’re a nonprofit with a board and plans for Squidge to outlive me.
Posts from my blogs elsewhere. Bits of my fandoms - Sailor Moon, Star Trek (my first fandoms - you never forget your first), Wheel of Time, MCU, among others. Social activist posts about disability, feminism, and asexuality.
She/Her pronouns.
Hey, I'm sure other people have let you know, but - I'm reading Discount Armageddon (it's great, btw) and I must say that city pigeons aren't wild, they're feral. Far as I know they're all descendents of domesticated pigeons who went independent.
Yes, I’m aware. But–and this is actually something important, that I need to remind people of periodically–my first person narrators are not me....
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