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Screenshot of my Facebook feed with a sponsored post

Well hi there, the Facebook! Thanks for noticing that I posted something about how your efforts to become the central authentication service for everything is not a good thing, and showing your appreciation by showing me an ad for, you guessed it, an ad for passwordless secure authentication. I’ve attached a screenshot for the light slaves, but for the blinks, the relevant text is this:

Suggested Post
SecureAuth
Passwordless is possible with modern adaptive authentication defense layers. Download this guide to learn how eliminate passwords while improving security and user experience.
Remove Reliance on Passwords
info.secureauth.com
Learn More
Custom
LikeReactCommentShareLike PageFull StoryMoreSponsored

Yet another advantage to owning my own data: I can share the text of screenshots as text. 🙂

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God fucking damn it, indeed. I’m calling this Tuesday’s internet win. This is from Twitter, and the optical character recognition of this is too long for a tweet, so I’m posting it here.

Washington DC
Funny getting hit by a car story: The paramedic
asked me a series of questions to determine
whether I was all there. The last question was
“Who is the President of the United States?” my
response was literally “God fucking damnit” and
the paramedic laughed and said that was an
acceptable answer.
1/29/17, 8:03 AM
000

Source.

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There’s an article in the New York Times that attempts to stop people from lecturing other people about skipping breakfast by pointing out that basically all the research and messaging is flawed, and that we probably need to start over.

The headline tells us that breakfast is not magical, but I’m here to tell you that indeed it is magical.

If I don’t get breakfast of some kind, you get nothin’

That’s right. If I don’t get breakfast of some kind, (and as far as I’m concerned, coffee counts as breakfast), you get nothin’. No code, no support, no accessible all the things, nothin’. I stay completely unmotivated until something goes in my face hole. That something could be just coffee, or coffee with some food. But they’re both breakfast, and since this is what keeps me (a) doing all the things and (b) not murdering everyone around me, breakfast is therefore still magical!

Seriously though, read the article.

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Blindbeader wrote an excellent peace critiquing the use of privilege by blind people, which is definitely worth a read, especially if you consider yourself a part of what’s known as the disabled rights movement. I agree completely with what she’s saying, but for me, the post brings to mind a few other points. First, that we all have privilege of some kind, and second, while we should be careful about letting our own allow us to forget the lack of it by others, I think we need to look at how we encourage others to “check theirs”, as it were.

I’ve never been a fan of the phrase, “Check your privilege,” not because I don’t think all of us need to be aware of how our upbringing, the environment we were raised in and live in, or the advantages we have in life can’t influence how we perceive others’ situations, but because of what it implies. To me, it implies that the person that phrase is being directed at has never looked outside their own bubble to consider what the speaker of that phrase may be going through. In some cases, I’m sure that’s true. After all, if we were all masters of empathy, the world wouldn’t be in the shape it’s in. But sometimes when we’re advocating, our self-righteousness gets in the way, and we mistake it for righteousness instead. I think we all should take a step back from time to time and look in the mirror. None of us can be perfect, but I believe if we displayed a little more empathy when advocating for our favorite cause, whatever that is, we’d get a lot more done with a lot less rancor attached. And we might even end up with a better society in the process.

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When it comes to spoken conversation, I swear. A lot.

Sometimes, people tell me I use the word “fuck” too much.

Well, next time that happens, I’m backing that shit up with science.

Swearing can be cathartic, which can help us cope with “intolerable periods of inner conflict, repression and readjustment”.
Swearing can also help us deal with physical pain, believe it or not. One study6 tested how long participants could hold their hand in a bucket of icy water. In the first round, participants were allowed to say a neutral word. In the second round, they repeated a swear word instead. The study found that swearing helped:
Swearing increased pain tolerance, increased heart rate and decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing. However, swearing did not increase pain tolerance in males with a tendency to catastrophize.

You can read the full article here, complete with all kinds of references, and enough history and linguistics to make any nerd’s little heart skip a beat. It even contains everyone’s favorite video Well, OK, maybe it’s just mine.

But the takeaway is this: Swear early, and swear often, because fucking science.

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You’d think they’d be nice to the guy, since he has a camera. There’s only so far you can take stupid, and this is apparently what happens when you stretch the limit. I sincerely hope this reporter doesn’t lose his job over his outburst. I also hope he had a better day afterwords.

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This was in my Twitter stream.

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full.They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and oured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous ‘yes’.

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

‘Now,’said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else—the small stuff.

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

‘Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents.
Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18.There will always be time to clean the house and fix the
disposal. Take care of the golf balls first—the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.’

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented.

The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’

The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.’

I have no idea who it’s by, but definitely something to keep in mind when life gets hectic.