Oof, men being creeps in photos is super common in my experience. I do historical costuming, and men think it’s hilarious to pretend to squeeze your boobs or butt (or bustle) when they ask for photo. Obviously the historical clothing adds another layer to the situation, but I don’t dress that way to be a punchline to a joke. Most of my costuming friends have similar stories of men oozing into the picture after their wives ask for a picture. My friends who do cosplay have had men do weird shit in photos, too. And they never introduce themselves first, so they can just disappear into the crowd after.

Admittedly that’s different than the situation with Franken where other people asking for his picture, but men are comfortable invading women’s personal space when it comes to photography. Lots of my female friends who don’t do costuming have stories about the creepy guy who gets too close for photos at family or work events. Just because Franken is famous doesn’t mean he can’t be a creepy dude who takes advantage of the situation.

I know everyone focuses on the photo and Learn Tweeden, but there were eight other women who made accusations. This is an old article, but it lists the eight accusations before he left, and there was a ninth after he left, detailed in the second link.

It’s not just the one photo. It’s that half the women had the same story of Franken touching them inappropriately during photos at public events.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/07/al-franken-news-list-of-sexual-misconduct-allegations.html

Ninth woman: https://www.businessinsider.com/ninth-woman-accuses-former-sen-al-franken-of-sexual-harassment-2019-9

Wow, I’ve been sexually assaulted too. Guess we’re at a detente.

The database is here. You’ll have to sign up for a free trial if you’re not a subscriber to The Atlantic already. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/books3-database-generative-ai-training-copyright-infringement/675363/

Oh, they’re 100% pirated. Sorry this isn’t open, but the preview should give you enough information. The database is available elsewhere, IIRC. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/books3-database-generative-ai-training-copyright-infringement/675363/

Hey, so, lots of rape survivors have asked people to stop framing rape as something that mars a person for life, because it’s basically a rephrasing of the outdated idea of a “ruined woman”. You can’t ruin a person. A lot of people really struggle with the idea that they’re dirty forever, and hearing that said by allies constantly doesn’t help their recovery. You can still recognize the harm that rape does without reinforcing outdated concepts of purity, where before they were pure and unmarked and after they’re “marred for life” with no recovery.

I have a recent Paperwhite, and you can still do the drag and drop thing with it. The Kindle shows up as a device on your computer, and you just need to get the files into the documents folder on it.

I can’t remember off the top of my head if you can skip the setup with a new Kindle and not make an Amazon account.

Ha, it gets even more hypocritical. The guy is called Quinn Gallagher and he’s part owner of a bar in Aspen that hosts drag shows. https://www.meidastouch.com/news/lauren-boeberts-theater-date-hosted-a-drag-show-at-his-bar

Howard Hughes suffered from really profound OCD and chronic pain in a time before effective medications for either of those. Arguably, effective treatments still don’t exist. He became a recluse because he wasn’t well enough to appear in public. I understand why the comparison might spring to mind, but I’m pretty sure Elon Musk is just an entitled asshole and not disabled.

Fiber arts! They’re for everyone, not just grandmas. Knitting, crochet, weaving, embroidery, sewing. The act of creating art lowers stress, and it really helps manage anxiety and depression. A lot of them also a mathematical or engineering approach, so if you find those things rewarding, you’ll probably enjoy fiber arts. And you get something warm or useful in the end…

Pork chops in garlic-butter sauce with mushrooms. I usually serve them with mashed potatoes and steamed fresh green beans. If you don’t do pork, you can do the exact same thing with chicken breasts.

3-4 thick-cut pork chops, preferably bone-in

1 cup mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

4 tablespoons butter

2-4 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon fresh oregano, OR 1 teaspoon dried

1 tablespoon fresh thyme, OR 1 teaspoon dried

1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup milk

2 cups chicken broth

Salt and pepper to taste

Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. In a large oven-proof skillet, combine the butter, garlic, herbs, and mushrooms over medium-high heat.

3. When the butter has melted, push everything to the sides and add the pork chops. Sear until golden on both sides.

4. Spread the mushrooms evenly over everything, and put skillet in the oven. Bake for around 35 minutes, or until the pork chops are at 150-160 F.

5. Remove from oven and set the pork chops aside to rest. Tent foil over them to keep them warm. You can remove the mushrooms too if you want, but don’t take away too much of the fat in the pan. You need whatever is in there for the gravy.

6. Put the skillet over low heat and whisk the flour into the fat in the pan. No lumps! Cook for 1-2 minutes to cook the flour and keep whisking. Whisk in the milk and chicken broth and cook until gravy is thick. Keep whisking the entire time. Flavor with salt and pepper to taste. If you want, you can add a pinch (1/8 teaspoon-ish) of red pepper flakes. It balances out the richness of the butter. You can also just put hot sauce on table, if you have spice-averse guests.

Oh, it’s totally a thing. I’m a woman and short, so I’m below the eye line of most men, and I’ve had men plow right over me on crowded sidewalks or at events. Most men expect the woman to yield in that situation and they’ll get annoyed if you don’t. It actually is surprising when a man moves out of the way, though I don’t know if it shows on my face.

I don’t have kids either, but my siblings and friends do, and kids today aren’t just seeing a little porn. It’s not like Playboys in the woods or a single 2 MB image downloaded for hours on dial-up. It’s pretty violent sexual activities in video, like strangling or surprise anal sex. Even twenty years ago, my first sexual partners had moves they picked up from porn, but they weren’t violent. Talking to young women today, the moves their partners are picking up and have been normalized by porn tend to be violent. Like, I never had a friend in college tell me that her boyfriend slapped her during sex and called her a dirty whore while she cried, but that seems to be a pretty common experience today.

The issue is that even older teens don’t have the life experience to contextualize what they see in porn and separate it from how you act in real life. If you’re into slapping people, that’s fine, but you’ve got to talk to your partner about it before you do to. If you’re getting your sex education from porn, then you don’t get the people skills part that’s important for successful relationships in real life.

This study touches on a lot of what I’m mentioning here, and they found a correlation between violence in teen relationships and porn viewing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6751001/

So, yeah. I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t think it’s sending a copy of your ID to a porn site, which seems incredibly risky for other reasons. I think sex and relationship education would help a lot, but that only connects with the kids who listen. Obviously there’s a parenting component there, but I don’t know how many parents are mentally health enough to have those conversations honestly. 🙃 Probably not the ones who wrote this bill.

Mine is in German and I’m an American who does not speak German. At least not that fluently. I am using Jerboa.

Yeah, you should be aware of the way people talk about cities in frankly bigoted ways if you don’t want to be perceived as a bigot. Talking about cities being dangerous or scary is a coded way to denigrate Black people. Like, when people talk about Chicago being dangerous, they’re specifically referring to neighborhoods with Black majority populations and generalizing it to the entire city. That’s what this meme is about, not traffic.

Meh. I live out in the country, and the only scary thing about cities to me is the traffic. Even NYC was fine outside of Times Square, and I took public transit. The only place I really hated was Orlando, but that was because of the exhausted Disney kids. It was overwhelming for everyone.

Condolences to your friend and their family. That’s heartbreaking. I hope they’re doing as well as can be expected.

I sew, and I wouldn’t even bother looking for linen in your local fabric stores. Most everything is going to be mixed with rayon and too narrow for sheets. That’s especially true if your local fabric store is Joann. I can recommend some online retailers, but my usual go-to in the past has been Ukrainian linen, and… uh, you know.

For your current sheets, it will take time for them to soften, but if you wash them on hot and tumble dry them, they’ll soften faster. There are multiple types of linen, and there’s a variety called softened linen where it’s been basically been beaten to soften the linen fibers and simulate wear. Linen that hasn’t been softened just hasn’t gone through that process and will be scratchier.