Save Your Computer

VERY IMPORTANT PSA

DO NOT DELETE SYSTEM32!!! There is a post going around saying it’s a virus from 4chan but that is NOT true! It is a part of the windows operating system and if you delete it your computer will be rendered useless. So please, do not reblog the post and don’t follow it’s instructions!

Info about System32 so you know I’m serious here [x]

The Disgrace Of Sacrificing A Generation

Would you like to know how bankrupt our societies are? Financially AND morally? Before you say yes, please do acknowledge that you too ar eparty to the bankruptcy. Even if you have means, or you have no debt, or you’re under 25, you’re still letting it happen. And you may have tons of reasons or excuses for that, but you’re still letting it happen.

Our financial and moral bankruptcy shows – arguably – nowhere better than in the way we treat our children. A favorite theme of mine is that any parent you ask will swear to God and cross and hope to die that they love their kids to death, but the facts say otherwise. We only love them as far as the tips of our noses, or as far as the curb. That means you too.

While we swear on our mother’s graves that we love them so much, we leave them with a world that lost half of its wildlife species in 40 years, that can expect to make coastal areas around the globe uninhabitable during their lifetimes, and a world that is so mired in debt just so we can hang on to our dreams of oversized homes and cars and gadgets that all there will be left for them are nightmares.

But I always wanted what was best for them! Yeah, well, you always chose to not pay too much attention, too, and instead elected to work that job you hate and keep up with the Joneses and tell yourself there was nothing you could do about it anyway other than a yearly donation to some socially accepted charity in bed with corporations (you didn’t know? well, did you try to find out?)

You elected leaders that promised to let you keep what you had, and provide more of the same on top. You voted for the people who promised you growth, but you never questioned that promise. You never wondered, sitting in your home, the size of which would only 100 years ago have put aristocracy to shame, what would be the price to pay for your riches.

And you certainly never asked yourself if perhaps it would be your own children who were going to pay that price. Well, ‘Ich hab es nicht gewüsst’ has not been a valid defense since the Nuremberg trials, in case you were going for that.

The fact of the matter is, we can continue our lifestyles, best as we can, because we are able to make our children pay for it. We allow ourselves to continue to kill more species, at home but mostly abroad, because we never get in touch with any of those species anyway. Other than mosquitoes, which we swat. We can drive our 3 cars per family because we only see the ice melt in the Arctic on TV.

And we allow ourselves, and our governments, to get deeper into debt everyday, because we’ve been told that without – ever – more debt we would all die, that debt is the lifeblood of our very existence. We don’t understand what it means that our governments increase their debt levels by trillions every year, and we choose not to find out.

That’s a matter for the next generation; we’re good with our oversized flatscreens and coal powered central heating and all of that stuff. We are better off than the generation of our parents, and isn’t life always supposed to be like that?

Which brings us back to your kids. Because no, life is not supposed to be like that. Not every generation can be better off than the one before. In fact, you are the last one for whom that is true. It’s been a short blip in human history, let alone in the earth’s history, and now it’s over. And you must figure out what you’re going to do, knowing that not doing anything will make your sons and daughters futures even bleaker than they already are.

Europe Sacrifices a Generation With 17-Year Unemployment Impasse

Seventeen years after their first jobs summit European Union leaders are divided on how to create employment and a fifth of young people are still out of work. At a meeting in Milan today Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi plans to tout the new labor laws he’s pushing through. French President Francois Hollande will argue for more spending, a proposal German Chancellor Angela Merkel intends to reject. Britain’s prime minister David Cameron isn’t coming.

Their lack of progress may increase the frustration of ECB President Mario Draghi’s calling on the politicians to do their bit now and loosen the continent’s rigid labor markets even if that means facing the ire of protected workers. “An entire generation is being sacrificed in countries such as Spain,” economist Ludovic Subran said. “That has a real impact on productivity in the long run.”

How someone can talk about “a real impact on productivity” in the face of millions of lost and broken lives is completely beyond me. You have to be really dense to do that. And they pay people like that actual salaries.

When EU leaders met in Luxembourg in November 1997, the soon-to-be-born euro zone’s unemployment rate was about 11%. Jean-Claude Juncker, then prime minister of the host country, now president designate of the European Commission, promised a mix of free-market solutions and government plans would mean a “new start” for young people. Today the jobless rate is 11.5%. The Milan summit will focus on youth unemployment, which afflicts 21.6% of people under 25 across Europe, according to Eurostat. Even this number is almost identical to 1997, when it stood at 21.7%.

Average European youth unemployment numbers may not have changed much since 1997, which is bad enough, but plenty numbers did change. The young people of Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal were not nearly as poorly off 17 years ago as they are today. That’s what the eurozone project has accomplished.

The leaders “need to discuss meaningful job creation,” Subran said. “It’s about avoiding the neither-nor situation of people being out of both work and school. This means providing jobs in the short term and training to improve skills and employability in the long term.” In February 2013, the EU allotted €6 billion ($7.6 billion) for youth-employment initiatives between 2014 and 2020, with the bulk of the spending in the first two years.

The centerpiece of the initiative is a “Youth Guarantee” that anyone under 25 should have either a job, apprenticeship, or training program within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed. The initiative focuses on regions with over 25% youth unemployment, which is the whole of Spain, Greece, and Portugal, all but the north-east of Italy, about half of France, and a few regions of eastern Germany.

Lofty words. But nothing has come of them in many years, and nothing will. Politicians vie for the votes and campaign donations of the parents, not the children. Until the children are the majority block, but by then present day leaders will be gone.

Germany is opposed to discussing new spending until already allotted sums have been spent. Instead, Merkel’s government has stressed liberalization of labor markets as the best path to create jobs. France and Italy argue they are already taking steps to loosen their labor markets and those efforts won’t work without a background of growth.

Italy’s proposed rules, opposed by some lawmakers from Renzi’s Democratic Party, aim at making firing easier while providing a new system of income support for those who lose their job. European employment did improve after 1997, with the unemployment rate bottoming between 2007 and 2008 at 7%, and 15.7% for young people, as a credit bubble boosted growth in Spain and Greece.

It ballooned during the subsequent financial crisis. “I’m worried how the euro zone has detached itself from the rest of the world economy,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told business leaders in London Oct. 6. “If there is no strategy to support growth at the eurozone, we will be in even greater trouble.”

The only solutions in the minds of the leadership are reforms (make it easier to get rid of the older people and let the young do their jobs at half the price) and growth. Both of which have failed for all those years, but that’s all folks so they press for more of the same. Who cares about the young until they can unseat you?

The present leadership selects for a future in which they – and theirs – will still be the leadership. It’s only natural. Any victims made along the way there are seen as necessary collateral damage. Reforms and growth. Reforms being break down what generations of workers have built up in rights. Fighting squalid working conditions and miserable low pay. Think about that what you like.

But growth? What if there is no growth? Hey, even the IMF just said growth won’t return to levels of old. And then called for more reforms. But what lives will your children have if growth is gone, and what are you prepared to for them is it is? How are you going to soften the blow for them? How much are you willing to sacrifice for your children lest they be sacrificed by society?

One last thing: it seems obvious that we teach our kids the wrong skills. Or there wouldn’t be so many unemployed or in low-paying jobs. So if we want our kids to get a job, what should change in our education systems? Now, I must be honest with you, I’ve found our education so bad ever since I was even younger than I am now that I up and left.

I simply noticed that it was meant for people happy to be pawns in someone else’s game, and I knew that wasn’t me. Colleges and universities mold people into usable – not even useful – ‘things’, provided there is no independent thinking going on. Because that kills the entire set-up. It’s all been an utter disgrace for decades.

But this is not about me. The question is, what are we going to teach our kids? Well, with our present power structure, it will be a mere extension of what there is today. The overriding idea is that tomorrow will be like today, just with more of the same. That’s all we know, and all we have. And that’s what keeps our leaders happy too: a world in which they feel they can be safely settled into their comfy seats. Progress while sitting still. Don’t think I’m right? THink about it.

So would do you think the consensus would be when it comes to education? I think it would be having our kids be managers, lawyers, programmers, the same things that are ‘in’ today. More of the same, just more. But is that so wise if even the IMF says growth will never be the same it once was? What if things get really bad? What skills will they have that can help them through times like that?

Shouldn’t we perhaps teach our kids basic skills first, just in case? So they can grow and preserve food, build a home, repair machinery, that kind of thing? And only after that deal with the fancier stuff?

We have become utterly dependent on the ‘system’. Is it a good idea for our kids to be too? We lost our basic skills – or at least our parents did – at the exact same time that ‘growth’ became the magic word du jour. The idea was that we didn’t need them anymore, that other people would grow our food and take care of all the other basic necessities for us.

But what if that was just a temporary bubble, and it’s gone now? The data sure point to it. In that case, should we rush to move back our sons and daughters to the skillset our grandparents had?

And just in case you think this is all and only about Europe, this is a great portrait of America:

Shoutout to tumblr users without internet friends.

Shoutout to tumblr users who are still trying to figure out aspects of tumblr.

Shoutout to tumblr users who for whatever reason feel excluded from fandoms/other communities.

Shoutout to tumblr users who feel lonely.

Shoutout to tumblr users who feel like everyone else on tumblr is cooler or smarter or better than them.

I’m prayin for us to overcome self-consciousness, shyness, whatever is in our way. You’re not defined by your blog or your online presence. I love you and know you can do anything.

Weird how the moment my FP goes to bed/stops talking to me is the same moment my mood goes from 100 to 0…. hm, must be a coincidence….

6 Tumblr shortcuts for blogging on a computer

Quick scroll, like, and view notes of a post on your dashboard: Keys J, K, L and N come very handy. Hit J for next post, K for previous post, L to like a post and N to show post’s notes 

Quickly compose a new post from anywhere on your Dashboard:  key combo Z + C (Option + Z for Mac)

Quickly reblog a post: Shift + R (Not working? Make sure you are on the right post by pressing J or K)

Quickly add a post to your Queue: Shift + E

Quickly play a video: Just click Enter

Quickly switch between your Dashboard and your Blogs: key combo Z+ Tab

Dreamy days//Wellington Lake

8 Things Autistic People Want You To Know

1. Autism is a fundamental part of who we are and how we experience the world and it cannot be separated from who we are as people. Autism is not something which is clearly separated from our identities and our personalities - it’s something which affects every aspect of how we think about, experience and interact with the world around us. Autism isn’t something we have or something we’re suffering from, it’s something we are. For the vast majority of autistic people, autism is a part of our identity which means that despite common belief most of us prefer to be called “autistic” as opposed to “people with autism.”  Do not tell us that we only have value if we can separate our identities and our personalities from autism.

2. The vast majority of autistic people do not want a cure, we want acceptance and accommodations. Do not put your time and money into researching how to cure autism and how to prevent it, put time and money into accommodating and accepting autistic people. We do not wish to become neurotypical, we wish to change society so that we can be accommodated, accepted and included as autistic people. Our goal isn’t to become as close to neurotypical as possible, it is to get the opportunity to live happy, fulfilling lives as autistic people. It is society that needs to chance, not us.

3. We do not support Autism Speaks or their campaign #LightItUpBlue and neither should you. If you want to support autistic people, check out ASAN or Autism Women’s Network instead. If you don’t know why autistic people don’t support Autism Speaks, check out the many resources linked in this post.

4. Functioning labels are at best inaccurate and at worst actively harmful.  Functioning labels (claiming that some autistic people are “high-functioning” while others are “low-functioning”) do more harm than good, not just because they aren’t able to give you an accurate impression of what supports an individual autistic person needs but because they’re mainly used to either silence or invalidate autistic people. Autistic people who speak up about the issues concerning them are labelled “high-functioning” to invalidate what they have to say as being inaccurate and irrelevant for other autistic people and so-called “low-functioning” autistic people are being silenced and spoken over because they are written off as too ‘low-functioning’ to have nuanced, relevant opinions or even communicate at all. Instead of forcing autistic people into one of two boxes, name the specific issues or strengths that you are referring to when you’re calling them low-functioning or high-functioning. Are they non-verbal? Say that instead of calling them low-functioning. Are they able to manage a job? Say that instead of calling them high-functioning.

5. Non-verbal autistic people can and do learn to communicate using other communication forms than verbal speech and they’re all individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, wants and opinions. You do not get to speak on behalf of non-verbal autistic people. You do not get to assume that you know exactly what they think, want and feel, especially not when you have never made any effort to communicate with any of them. Instead of assuming that you know what non-verbal autistic people think and feel, try listening to what they have to say by reading the words of some non-verbal autistic people such as @lysikan or Amy Sequenzia or Emma Zurcher-Long.

6. Applied Behavior Analysis, the most widespread and well-known therapy for autistic children, does more harm than good. The goal of ABA therapy is to train and force autistic people into hiding their autistic traits by all means possible as if passing for neurotypical should be the goal of all autistic people regardless of what consequences it might have for their general well-being and their mental health. If you don’t see why that is a problem, check out this masterpost by @neurowonderful.  

7. People diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome are just as autistic as people diagnosed with other variants of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Aspergers is autism and to emphasize this, aspergers and other variants of autism have been united under a broader diagnosis called “autism spectrum disorder” in the DSM-5, Back when aspergers was a separate diagnosis, the only difference between whether you got diagnosed with aspergers or autism was whether you spoke before you were three years old - something which says approximately nothing about your struggles and abilities later in life.  The common misconception that aspergers and autism is two different things is just that - a misconception.

8. If you want to learn more about autism, listen to autistic people - not our parents, our siblings, our therapists our or caregivers. Autistic people are the ones who know the most about being autistic, so if you want to learn about autism we’re the ones you should ask. If you want to learn more about the different aspects of autism, @neurowonderful‘s youtube series “Ask An Autistic” is a good place to start. Here is an index over all the episodes so that you can easily find the topic you want to learn about.  You can also visit @askanautistic where autistic people are ready to answer whatever questions you may have about autism.  

Please reblog this post. It’s time tumblr starts listening to autistic people.

Creativity is not a rare insight, that comes to you suddenly, once in a lifetime, to change the world. It’s just the opposite…The key is to learn how to bring your ideas together, over time.

Keith Sawyer (via creativesomething)

Apple launches late AirPods into immediate ship slip

Apple today began selling the delayed AirPods, but the wireless headphones almost immediately skated to a 2017 ship date.

The Cupertino, Calif. company warned customers that the product would be available in “limited quantities at launch.”

Indeed.

The $159 headphones – which resemble enlarged ear buds sans wires – debuted on Apple’s online store earlier Tuesday. Within minutes, the estimated ship date shifted from Dec. 21 to mid-January 2017.

Apple introduced the AirPods in September, alongside the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. At the time, executives said that the headphones would be available in October. Late in October, however, Apple confirmed that the AirPods were delayed, saying, “We need a little more time before AirPods are ready for our customers.”

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

via http://www.computerworld.com/article/3149861/computer-peripherals/apple-launches-late-airpods-into-immediate-ship-slip.html#tk.rss_news and www.computechtechnologyservices.com