brainstatic:

brainstatic:

brainstatic:

brainstatic:

Look, I never believe in conspiracy theories, I think Al-Qaeda did 9/11, I think Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK, I think a high altitude radiation-sensing balloon crashed in Area 51, and I think Obama is a protestant from Hawaii. But I’m about 50% sure that Trump is (most likely unwittingly) a pawn of the Russian government. The evidence keeps piling up. He has aides with deep Russian ties. One of his chief foreign policy advisors is a regular on Russian propaganda TV. His campaign manager has a history of putting Putin lackeys into power. His aides gutted the pro-Ukraine parts of the RNC. And now he’s doubling down on his promise to maybe not help our NATO allies if they were attacked by Russia. Even a candidate saying that helps Russia. He has numerous business ties to Russian oligarchs, even hosting the Miss USA pageant in Moscow. And to top it all off, Russian hackers are trying their best to hurt the Clinton campaign. I don’t know how anyone can see all of this and not be suspicious. 

Oh and it turns out the Trump Organization is heavily leveraged by Russian banks since American banks wouldn’t touch his shitty businesses anymore. So he owes the Russians a lot of money. I’m now 55% sure.

Just to expand on this here: the Trump campaign had no interest in shaping the party platform, with the sole exception of their demand that they remove the language promising to defend Ukraine from a Russian attack. They didn’t even care about immigration policy. They just focused on standing out of Putin’s way should he try to annex the rest of Ukraine. 

I wish we could customize the messaging sound. I honestly hate the bloop noise. It’s so loud! Why does it need to be so loud? I could turn it off, but then I wouldn’t know when I was getting message. I wish I could set it to be the same as my phone notification sound.

chamomile-geode:

& the golden apple of discourse was tossed among the feast-goers, inscribed with the phrase “to the least problematic”

realsocialskills:

Presenters often open by asking “Can everybody hear me?” or “Can everyone hear me without the microphone?”

This isn’t a very effective way to find out if everyone can hear you. It feels like asking, but it isn’t really — because it doesn’t usually give people the opportunity to say no.

If you want to know if everyone can hear you, this way of asking works better:

• First, ask if everyone can hear you. This will get the attention of the people who can.
  
• Next, ask everyone “Can the person next to you hear me?”
  
• Wait 7 seconds for people to ask each other
  
• Next, say, “Raise your hand if you or someone near you needs me to talk louder or use the microphone.”
  
• Wait at least 7 seconds before moving on. 
  
• (7 seconds feels really long as a presenter. It helps to literally count silently to yourself).
  

Asking this way solves two problems:

It makes it easier for people to hear the question:

• If someone can’t hear you well, they may not hear “Can everybody hear me?”
  
• This can give you the misleading impression that everyone can hear you.
  
• When you ask, “Can everybody hear me?” the people who can, tend to respond “yes” immediately
  
• The people who *can’t* hear you well, often don’t hear the question.
  
• Or they may not understand what you’ve said until you’ve already moved on.
  
• But they probably *can* hear people who are close to them talking to them directly.
  
• Asking “can the person next to you hear me?” makes it more likely that people who can’t hear you will understand the question.
  

It makes it easier for people to respond to the question:

• Saying “Can everybody hear me?” or “Can everyone hear me without the microphone?” *feels* like asking, but often it really isn’t. 
  
• The problem is that asking that way doesn’t give people an obvious socially acceptable way to respond.
  
• So in order for people to say “I can’t hear you” or “I need you to use the microphone”, they have to interrupt you.
  
• Which feels like a conflict, and most people don’t want to go into a presentation and immediately have a conflict with the presenter.
  
• It also makes them have to identify themselves as having an inconvenient impairment in front of the whole group.
  
• That’s uncomfortable on a number of levels, and may be actively frightening. 
  
• Not everyone is going to be willing or able to interrupt you or take risks. 
• Even when people are willing, it’s still anxiety provoking in a way that’s likely to make your presentation less comfortable and effective
• Giving people a clear way to respond gets you better information, and helps you to build a better rapport with your audience 
  
• (And doing it in the specific way I suggest makes it possible for people to let you know they can’t hear you without having to interrupt you, identify themselves to you, or identify themselves to the whole group.)

Tl;dr If you’re giving a presentation, asking “Can everyone hear me?” probably won’t result in people who can’t hear you telling you so. Scroll up for more detailed information about a more effective approach and why it works better.

mckitterick:

rhube:

deducecanoe:

antifainternational:

kvothe-kingkiller:

cumbrianabroad:

bethrevis:

Look, when I say “representation matters,” I believe that the most important thing is for people who are often ignored in arts and media to see themselves there. 

But I also mean that it’s important for white/hetero people to see people who aren’t white/hetero. 

Here’s the thing. I was raised in a very white/hetero community. Every friend I had was white. I never had a black person in my classroom until late high school. I never had a black teacher until college. There was one out-gay student at my high school. One. And I saw what shit he had to go through by being out. 

And, if I’m honest with myself, most of the adults in my life were racist and homophobic. They were good, loving people…to me. But they were also racist and homophobic. 

And as a kid through my teen years, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that didn’t affect me. I parrotted the adults in my life, which meant that I often parrotted their hate and their prejudice. I’m ashamed of those attitudes now–now that I’ve had education and met people who were different from me and travelled the world and put aside hate. 

But then? It was easy to excuse racism. People who weren’t white and straight didn’t exist in my world–and they didn’t exist in the world I saw on television and in books and on the radio. It was easier to live in the bubble of that world. 

Representation matters to white people, too. It is important for white people to see diversity. Not as a token, not as “politically correct”–the white people who feel that adding a minority character to a storyline is pandering are horrible people who are entirely missing the point. I’m talking about the white kids who don’t see minorities in their lives, but who see a black girl and a white boy being friends on Sesame Street. I’m talking about the straight teen reading More Happy than Not, I’m talking about the white teen empathizing with Malala Yousafzai. The more representation we have, the more we hold a mirror through the world rather than whiting-out people who aren’t like the majority, the better our world is.

Representation matters.

I swear to god, it’s like every damn word could have come out of my own brain. Brava!

Honestly. As someone who went to a very tiny, almost completely white private school through eighth grade and then to a high school in a city with the demographics of a marvel movie (89.3% White, 0.7%African American, 0.4% Native American, 5.6% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 0.8% other races, 3.0% two or more races. 3.7% Hispanic or Latino) I never realised that the casting choices in most tv shows and movies vastly underrepresent any race that isn’t white.

I remember being confused about people saying they should hire more actors of color for movies set in like new york because thats what i legit thought the rest of the US and western europe was like.

Representation matters more than you think.

If whiney white boys would have grown up in a world where other races (and genders) were represented in their media from a young age, they wouldn’t be flipping their shit every two minutes cos there is a chick lead character or POC in a previously white role. Representation trains little white boys not to be douchecanoes.

Representation trains little white boys not to be douchecanoes.

Conscious writing can help save the world. Or at least help make it a better place for future generations.