Of all my stories about the many stupid things I’ve done, somehow the only one that gets reliably met with skepticism is the time I was very nearly killed by the worlds largest giraffe puppet. It’s bizarre, you’d think it would be the bowling ball cannon blowing up or the forklift jousting incident or further BS like that, but nope. Giant puppet death, that’s unbelievable.

Much less effective from an (admittedly brief) look around. The finer filtration you get with paper apparently helps filter it out, but it’s such a small amount that even if you were just chewing beans it doesn’t appear to matter.

I’m sure that will really annoy all seven people that use it…

I mean, sure maybe? The appeal is in someone sharing something they’re passionate about and taking the time to craft images to showcase it (and in a sexy way). If you’re putting effort into doing that, it’d probably work fine.

Ah no I just meant it was a coincidence that when I said robots, referring to my milling machines, you guessed one of the main things I do with them (combat robots). I do technically own an arm, but it’s just a small 2.5-axis tray placing arm, everything else I have is just various flavors of CNC or 3D printing equipment. And as to why I own them: I’m really bad with money and my autistic hyperfocus is robots. IDK man they’re just cool.

What type of bot

(Is there really a difference between a vert spinner and an antweight flipper…?) I have a beaterbar bot, but my local group plays with an arena floor that isn’t flat so the meta has really been shifting towards control bots since they’re the least reliant on clearance for success (looking at you, wedgebots. Looking at you with scorn in my gaze). But! I’ve been messing around with a hammerspinner design that I’m really hoping will bring back the carnage that’s been really missing in the pin-heavy matches lately.

Everyone wants the coveted silicon valley stress for 5 years then retire and coast off your resume position dont they.

Turns out those jobs are really hard to get, damnit…

Like combat robots

Antweight, yep! Though I just meant I own a lot of manufacturing robots, the antweight thing is just a coincidental hobby.

And now you live in a boat off the coast of Costa Rica

God, I wish. Software development pays really well… if you don’t have a specialization that shunts you into the public sector. And then you get laid off because of the political climate in the US.

who just has a horizontal bar running from one side of an indiscriminate room to another sort of thing

Hahaha, totally abnormal - it was real fun to think up an explanation for what it was when my mother just wandered into my room… and it was a real pain to install, let me tell you what. Makes sense about the cabin though, thank you for explaining! I just have access to a lot of 2x4s, hence the amount of wooden construction in the background…

Lol no problem - fudging some of the specific details, but I’m (until recently) a software developer specializing in research database applications, and I teach computer science on the side. The CNC and electronics in general are just hobbies that feed into other hobbies (who doesn’t love robots???), and the vault door was a photo from a dear old friend who works construction and knows of my love for the retro-industrial aesthetic.

(Very curious where the idea I’m in a cabin came from, I think all my posts have been from when I was living in my regular boring old house!)

So the above example is a bit of a special case since it appeals to me specifically because of my love for plants and automation.

But in a slightly less specific niche, you’ve pretty much nailed it. Someone sending something personal that they’re passionate about is hot for a bunch of obvious reasons (passion, sexy naked people thinking about the composition of their photos) and someone sending something creative would be pretty unique in my experience, and it’d be really fun to think they put that much effort into showing off.

Hi I am an autistic chick and yes, please, this would without a word of a lie 100% absolutely work on me.

Absolutely correct. They barely consider Palestinians human as it is.

Absolutely! It’s not about binaries, and I’m not and never have been advocating for a regime change.

You yourself have described them as socially conservative:

their social conservativism isn’t intrinsic to being Yemeni but is a consequence of nationalist resistance to imperialism

And I continue to agree - and the reality is that right now, as a consequence of the imperialist system they’re forced to exist within, they are a socially conservative government that supports authoritarian actions as a consequence of outside pressures. I don’t think either of us think they intrinsically are that way, but they are that way right now - and the result is a situation I am absolutely comfortable describing as a “nightmare” for queer people to live within.

I don’t think that every aspect of Yemen is a nightmare, nor that it is a nightmare for every Yemeni citizen. But it is for some of them, and carrying that through as a description since the originating topic was based on the plight of queer yemeni is not particularly unreasonable.

Okay, I’m glad we have that sorted out!

Okay and we shouldn’t excuse the western power’s behavior, but unless the US was persecuting queer Yemeni on behalf of the Yemeni government, it’s still not relevant to the topic being discussed here.

I think you’ve misunderstood - what I said was that the US being the “paragon” of humanitarian aid doesn’t excuse the crimes they have committed, much as Yemen’s agreement to aid colombia in this should not mean we overlook their history of human rights abuses.

I’m… not sure what bearing that has on this conversation. As far as I’m aware, the west is only involved in this by supporting Israel.

Where have I done that?

That’s the exact opposite of the point I was making.

Well… yes.

That’s pretty much exactly what I’ve been saying this entire time. To borrow your langauge: Reducing the situation to a simple binary (good/evil, “peak”/“struggling”, etc.) itself reinforces an imperialist narrative that removes the realities of the situation. By ignoring the actions they take that are negative, we allow that binary narrative to be forced upon them, removing any semblance of agency and reducing “conservative authoritarian nightmare” from a criticism of their government to a criticism of the country as a whole.

They cannot free themselves from imperialism if we use imperialist ideas like “Good vs. Evil” to quantify them.

I don’t believe I’ve made any such claims about yemen being “bad” nor that that would somehow justify imperialism. I referenced your use of pronouns to point out that you also can understand that supporting a cause is more complicated than simply ticking a box labeled “Support/Depose”, because you have a vested personal interest in the multifaceted nature of the topic.

My point throughout this has been that we should not excuse the bad things just because good things exist - that was the entire reason I called the US “The paragon of humanitarianism” or somesuch. It’s undeniably true that they give out more humanitarian aid than any other country, but that simple claim is both clearly not the full picture, nor does it somehow mean we should ignore their crimes.

If we’re going to support progressive social movements in Yemen, we must inherently accept that there is a state that warrants us progressing from. They are a socially conservative authoritarian nightmare, who tortuously put to death people extremely similar to both you and I. And yet despite that I still support their actions here. We should not hail them as a paragon of human rights, because they clearly are not, and doing so would invalidate the work of so many people who stand their lives against the social order in their country to try and secure a better life for people who have done nothing wrong. But we should also praise that “conservative authoritarian nightmare” regime’s actions here, because they have done something undeniably good.

The world is too complicated to have true paragons, and doing so oversimplifies reality to the point where we become comfortable with tragedy just because the binary says we must be.

The US Empire isn’t giving out true aid, though.

I’m curious what you consider ‘true’ aid - not within the context of the US’ behavior, but because you appear to have given this a great deal of thought and I’m curious about your thoughts on how the “idealized” (for lack of a better term) way to distribute aid should work. I have long opinions of my own I’ll spare you (in short NGOs are not in of themselves inherently bad to work with, especially when the government in question is dubiously moral), but I am quite curious about your thoughts on this.

Yemeni human rights abuses are in the context of victims of imperialism

Yes, absolutely. But while that does make them understandable, it does not make them justifiable. You yourself use gender neutral pronouns, which in many countries would see you subject to at best social persecution. While I can understand the reasons why they may persecute you for that, much as with the hyper-religious ‘christofascists’ of the US conservative movement, I cannot condone their actions nor agree that their justification is acceptable. That victims of abuse may themselves become abusers isn’t disputed, but it also does not make their victims any less victimized, or them any less guilty of that abuse.