the Patrix

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
sherbert113
homunculus-argument

Some people are baffled by the concept that there really are people who actually like children but don't want any of their own. "Childfree" doesn't automatically mean someone who simply hates children. The thing is, I do like kids, and I will absolutely not compromise on my stance that each and every child deserves to grow up in a safe, stable and supportive environment. I also know that I get aggressive if I'm constantly sleep-deprived or overstimulated. People generally don't regard me as someone capable of violence, but if I can't get 15 minutes of silence each day and at least 5 hours of sleep every night, I will start throwing things. And I know kids won't let you have that. Ever.

Kids deserve to grow up feeling safe and cherished, unafraid to express themselves and without worry that they're unwelcome or unwanted. And that's why they should be doing that somewhere else than in my fucking house.

shortandsweet
inkskinned

we were the liminal kids. alive before the internet, just long enough we remember when things really were different.

when i work in preschools, the hand signal kids make for phone is a flat palm, their fingers like brackets. i still make the pinky-and-thumb octave stretch when i "pick up" to respond to them.

the symbol to save a file is a floppy disc. the other day while cleaning out my parents' house, i found a collection of over a hundred CDs, my mom's handwriting on each of them. first day of kindergarten. playlist for beach trip '94. i don't have a device that can play any of these anymore - none of my electronics are compatible. there are pieces of my childhood buried under these, and i cannot access them. but they do exist, which feels special.

my siblings and i recently spent hours digitizing our family's photos as a present for my mom's birthday. there's a year where the pictures just. stop. cameras on phones got to be too good. it didn't make sense to keep getting them developed. and there are a quite a few years that are lost to us. when we were younger, mementos were lost to floods. and again, while i was in middle school, google drive wasn't "a thing". somewhere out there, there are lost memories on dead laptops. which is to say - i lost it to the flood twice, kind of.

when i teach undergrad, i always feel kind of slapped-in-the-face. they're over 18, and they don't remember a classroom without laptops. i remember when my school put in the first smartboard, and how it was a huge privilege. i used the word walkman once, and had to explain myself. we are only separated by a decade. it feels like we are separated by so much more than that.

and something about ... being half-in half-out of the world after. it marks you. i don't know why. but "real adults" see us as lost children, even though many of us are old enough to have a mortgage. my little sister grew up with more access to the internet than i did - and she's only got 4 years of difference. i know how to write cursive, and i actually think it's good practice for kids to learn too - it helps their motor development. but i also know they have to be able to touch-type way faster than was ever required from me.

in between, i guess. i still like to hand-write most things, even though typing is way faster and more accessible for me. i still wear a pj shirt from when i was like 18. i don't really understand how to operate my parents' smart tv. the other day when i got seriously injured, i used hey siri to call my brother. but if you asked me - honestly, i prefer calling to texting. a life in anachronisms. in being a little out-of-phase. never quite in synchronicity.

snazzymolasses

I imagine that the last generation to really feel this way, to really feel a before-and-after kind of world, was at the last turn of the century, which had 3 huge, life-changing inventions happen all at once.

In 1890, everybody rode horses, used candles to see at night, and communicated through letters.

By the 1920s (only 30 years later!), everybody had automobiles (or access to another form of 'self-driving' transportation like busses or trams) and nobody had horses. Nearly everyone had electricity in their houses. Nearly everyone had a telephone, or access to one.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine growing up, being taught by your parents all about how to ride horses and care for them and hitch them to a wagon, only to...not ever use that knowledge as an adult, because you have a car? Can you imagine learning how to make candles, finally getting good enough at it to be useful to your family as a teenager, only to flick a switch to turn on a light bulb as an adult?

I feel like that last huge change in technology is the same thing we are going through. I know how to read a paper map. I will never need to use this knowledge. But it's still in there; including the many patient hours my mother spent teaching me, and a lot of fond memories I have of her doing it. I know how to research a topic in a paper library, with actual books. Pretty sure I will never do that again. I memorize phone numbers, 'just in case'. In case what? The automobile (smartphone) gets un-invented? But I hold that knowledge in my head. It's there. It's part of me.

I wish I could speak to my great-great-grandmother, who had her first baby in 1900. To ask her, if what Millennials now are going through is what it was like for her Centennial generation. The absolute whiplash, from one way of life to another.

Kids born in 1890 knew how to make candles, and kids born in 1920 could not fathom why you would need to know this.

shortandsweet
deargodsno
North Island brown kiwi 'no longer threatened' as population swells to 20,000
After years of intensive conservation efforts, the North Island brown kiwi has been moved off the "at risk" list.
Stuff

After years in decline, kiwi numbers are bouncing back thanks to intensive conservation efforts by the government and volunteers.

The good news for New Zealand’s national bird was revealed in the Department of Conservation’s report into the conservation status of birds.

Of the five species of kiwi, the North Island brown kiwi is faring best.

image

Its numbers have grown to more than 20,000 which saw it reclassified from “at risk – declining” to “no longer threatened”, with its population expected to grow by more than 10 per cent over the next three generations.

Some good news to start the year.

sleepsleepnotwoke

🫂 peace and love in panet earth

up-seventeen-steps
sungodsevenoclock

I know, I know, gatekeeping the outdoors, that's supposedly bad, right, but I think if you show up to do a hike and you brought a portable speaker with you to play music while you hike, I think, like hear me out, there should be a gate, and someone at the gate should keep you from doing the hike.

nicdevera

playing music in public should get strong social disapproval

squareallworthy

Recorded music, anyway. Live music is different rules. If you want to lug an entire cello up a mountain you can do whatever the hell you want.

headspace-hotel

Carrying a speaker on a hike to make everyone listen to your bullshit, and simply sitting under a tree and playing a fiddle in the woods, are two activities so different they may as well not exist in the same world.

unclear-contributions

I think the critical difference is that the bringing of recorded music with you ties the space to Elsewhere, whereas the creation of live music with an instrument you brought both binds you to the space, and drags everyone who hears you play into it as well.

headspace-hotel

I think you're right.

lonelygingerpies

Also it's never someone who wants to blast Bach or Vivaldi who brings a speaker is it