ScottinSoCal 🇺🇦 🕊 🏳‍🌈 @ScottSoCal@computerfairi.es

Kudos to the New York Public Library (#NYPL) for mining this vein of gold beneath our feet.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzyde/librarians-are-finding-thousands-of-books-no-longer-protected-by-copyright-law

"NYPL has been reviewing the US #Copyright Office’s official…records for [books] whose copyrights haven’t been renewed…The books in question were published between 1923 & 1964, before changes to US copyright law removed the requirement for rights holders to renew their copyrights…Around 65 -75% of rights holders opted not to renew their copyrights."

#PublicDomain

The classic tawny frogmouth picture shows them looking right at the camera - and I always worry whether the photographer is disturbing them. These 2 did have a bit of a stare at me (after the ravens woke them up) but then were quite animated. Here they are watching a slowly flying insect - they followed it almost 270 degrees. I love the glow of their eyes and the play of light and shade in this. #birds #birdphotography #photography

A speck of good news today. Here's a real banger of an op-ed supporting trans rights by the incredible Jamelle Bouie https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/opinion/trump-desantis-transgender-rights.html?smid=tw-share

Black service members who served in wars, were often denied access to the GI Bill when they returned.

So white veterans could get loans for college, or to buy a house. Black veterans could not. This lack of access to affordable education and affordable housing had devastating impacts on Black veteran homelessness.

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1129735948/black-vets-were-excluded-from-gi-bill-benefits-a-bill-in-congress-aims-to-fix-th

Black veterans were also denied access to medical care and benefits. This lack of access to healthcare also drove homelessness.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9XEj1AL9Bsw

Expect to get followed by people you are already following as a #MastoMigration is occurring from #MastodonLol, an instance of +18,000 users, to other instances, in advance of it shutting down.

If notifications are turned on, you will get notified you have a new follower but it's really not. It's just someone you already follow with a moved #Mastodon account. It all is done behind the scenes.

And @battlingbeaver tells me I should have introduced myself before I just jump in and start posting.

Sorry! I'm Tara. I'm an infectious diseases researcher and Associate Prof at the University of Toronto, and I'm the lead of COVID-19 Resources Canada.

We do the Canadian COVID Forecast, Canadian COVID data reporting, the Canadian Excess Mortality Tracker, and of course, COVID Conversation Zoom sessions supported by me and other volunteer scientists.

It's great to be here at last!

SpaceX should be defunded as a matter of urgency.

#ukraine

@cautionarytale

Truly racist people are a minority in this country, but systemically racist people, are almost all of us. Most of us do not want to participate in racist systems, but many times we don't even know that we are in them, or what we could do to stop contributing to the harm.

My purpose is to destroy racist systems by showing non-racist people where the leverage points are.

I can't make a racist person decide to break a racist system. I don't have that power. But that's not needed

@TonyStark

Biden did a great job and didn't let the GOP ruffle his feathers, "I like conversation."

It was odd not seeing Nancy Pelosi on the stand.

It was great to see some applause from the GOP, although MTG pulled her go to move: throwing a tantrum. She's a hot mess and so needy.

I'm changing the meaning of MTG to Major Tantrum Gollum.

Watching the GOP boo Biden's intent to raise teacher salaries took some air out of DeSantis' overly inflated ego since he's raising teacher raises to get more votes lined up for 2024.

Please stop planning conferences, workshops, and events in states where pregnant people cannot safely travel

@ScottSoCal @Alice i know people who’ve flubbed the OTHER direction…that flowering vine isn’t a clitoris, either.

70 year old Florida woman files discrimination suit against bank after arrest and abusive treatment in jail
https://www.yahoo.com/now/florida-woman-files-discrimination-suit-192434861.html

“I’m not here to deny climate change. It’s real. It happens 4 times every year.”

-Lauren Boebert

This idiot thinks she’s clever but really she’s just proving what a vapid, completely clueless, helmet wearing, window licking, crayon eating moron she really is.

The White-breasted Nuthatch comes around only once in a while.
They are a little bigger then the Red-breasted Nuthatch
They are nice looking birds i wish they would come around more.

You can find it bigger here: https://jan-luit.pixels.com/featured/upside-down-jan-luit.html

#AYearForArt #ArtMatters #Art #Birds #FediGiftShop #NaturePhotography #Birdwatching #Nature #Natuur #PhotographyIsArt #BirdsOfTheFediverse #BuyArtNotCandy #mastoart #Photography #fotografie

This week I drove 3 and a half hours to my hometown so I could drop my goodwill bags off at the same store I got all my clothes in high school from.

My wife and I were talking about how when we were growing up, nobody ever said any food was spicy to us. It was just food. And you just had it, or didn’t. We weren’t trained to eat spicy food, or told we couldn’t eat something spicy because of our age. It was just food.

One of the major cultural differences I see here, I guess, is the idea that some types of food have some age requirement, especially ‘ethnic’ food. We just ate everything at all times.

As a #transgender person, I have thought about what it means to be a gender more than any cis person can imagine thinking about it.
I cried, prayed, and agonized about for years.
I got so introspective, I had a council of voices in my head to debate with.
I wanted to die for a long time because I thought that would be easier than wrestling with my own identity.

When I read about all this anti-trans legislation being passed across the country, across the world, I think about how fragile my sense of self really was when I was just a kid. I think about kids out there, right now, questioning and terrified to say anything, thinking they must be wrong or broken because adults know what's best, thinking they are less deserving of love and acceptance.
These kids.
These beautiful, sensitive, remarkable kids.
They are being taught to hate themselves.
Self-hate leads to self-harm; it leads to accepting the worst because you feel like you deserve it.

We can't let this continue.

If I knew how to fix it, I would.
I would have already.
But I don't.

#Trans #Transgender #TransKids #LGBT #LGBTQ #LGBTQ

accidentally wrote "saad" instead of "saas" in a text to my partner; they immediately coined "Software as a Disappointment"

and honestly, where is the lie