just in case anyone missed this in the news or maybe not in the loop, Disney is currently refusing to meet with or acknowledge the newly formed animation production workers union that just voted to join IASTE and become an official part of TAG, the animators and animation artists guild
production workers across all studios are currently voting to be recognized for their hard work and invaluable skill at keeping these productions running, but studios are refusing to meet with them to let them negotiate deals or even exist
as someone who works in animation as a designer i know i wouldn’t be able to do my job at all without any of my production workers. they are the incredibly hard working people who oversee pretty much everything in animation. they make sure everything is running on time, that schedules are being followed, they have to know pretty much every single word of the scripts and beats from the storyboards to make sure nothing is missed, and most importantly, they make sure artists are being taken care of and not overworked. they really are the unsung heroes of the animation world
production workers are also by far the most exploited workers in animation currently. they make about a fraction of what artists make for just as much work put in, and currently have no agreement for health coverage or other benefits that artists protected by the union are guaranteed
BUT! there is some good news. right now there’s a petition on IATSE’s website that has over 80,000 signatures currently addressed to disney leadership to do the right thing and meet with this new union and recognized their vote to form. it still needs roughly 21,000 signatures and only takes a minute to sign! anyone with a zip or postal code can sign, meaning both US and Canadian residents can sign and help this union get the deal it deserves!!
Yeah, trains are pretty much the most efficient transit system known to man and it is maddening that we chose other methods at any chance
it was racism!! it was good ole american racism!!! this cannot be forgotten. any discussion abt this topic without racism front and center as the PRIMARY REASON for this change is toothless and impotent.
the auto companies created the term “jaywalking” to demonize walking on streets, associated it with stupidity and “undesirable people”, and offered automobile ownership as the solution. they convinced the white upper and middle classes that public transit was a waste of money and did they really want to sit next to Those People on a trip to the park? and CONVENIENTLY built highways through communities of color and immigrant communities, neatly displacing them and gentrifying the surrounding areas in one fell swoop. it was because of RACISM and CLASSISM. the auto companies weaponized racism and classism to sell privileged white people on a stupid technology that actively harms everyone on the planet themselves included.
electric trains are an efficient technology that does a lot of good for communities and is extremely necessary in the coming years of climate catastrophe but we canNOT discuss this with discussing class and race and protecting people affected by pro-public-transit policies while implementing them. we MUST protect vulnerable communities liable to get ousted by luxury apartments built next to the new metro station. rent controlled apartments and redesigned zoning laws are a MUST.
Biggest indicator of US decline: You could buy 6 BigMacs with 1 hour of minimum wage in 1980, but today you can’t even buy one, despite minimum wage more than doubling.
It’s over.
Fs for the USA
explaining purchasing power collapse to an american: imagine no burger
a couple years ago, i got really ambitious and decided i was going to make a uquiz. it would be the uquiz to end all uquizzes, it would mean i used my history degree and it would be queer with a capital Q. and to be fair to past me, i did all the questions, had chosen what (or who, in this case) the results would be, and just had to write the bios for those results, which i did half of… and then crashed. two years later, i finally convinced myself to finish it off, so i mostly proudly present the ’which historical gay are you?’ uquiz. if your result’s bio is a little lacking, thats not because youre boring, it’s because i’m chronically ill <3
hey jsyk while hellofresh is dummy expensive and i wouldn’t recommend it if you already know how to cook (if you’re a beginner like i was when i had it for 3 months, then it’s worth it), you should know that ALL OF THEIR RECIPES are free on their website and they all fuck hard
i will say that all the cooking instructions for veggies are pretty much the same (season with salt + pepper and roast on the top oven rack at 425F), but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
that being said, it also introduced me to methods i wasn’t at all expecting. i would have never thought to use cream cheese in my meat sauce, and now all my friends are constantly asking me to make my special rigatoni.
I think one of the consequences of getting older is finding out that your parents were kind of right when they complained about technology? At least you can see they weren’t entirely wrong.
I’ve been hearing from friends that it’s getting harder to find quality refrigerators that don’t connect to the internet. Why exactly does my refrigerator need wifi? Or even a computer, at that? Older fridges can last decades because they have so few failure points. They have one job and they do it well.
I tend not to use my smart TV very often because the damn thing glitches and it’s laggy and too much of a hassle unless I am really committed to watching a movie in my living room. And the worse thing is…can you even buy a non-smart TV these days that isn’t secondhand? Are they even making ordinary…yanno…televisions that don’t need software updates and internet connections, anymore?
Someone in the comments of this post asked how bluetooth earbuds are forced and everyone pointed out that a lot of phones (especially iphones) simply do not have the ports to plug in wired headphones anymore. You must get the apple wireless headphones - and I think that’s the crux of the problem. I am glad I have an android phone because I can use the old wired earbuds I’ve had for over 12 years. If I wanted to, I could buy wireless earbuds and use them instead, because my model of phone gives me that option.
And that’s the kicker: the problem is that as things are “advancing,” more and more, options are being taken away. It has nothing to do with consumer demand - obviously there are a lot of people that are not happy with these developments. But as we’re seeing, the products being made don’t reflect customer preference or choice. It’s always about is best for the companies making and selling those products.
Every day we’re hearing about new apps and tech startups and really…does anyone really want this shit? Is the nth attempt to make crypto work, the billions spent on the Metaverse, doorbell cameras; is a fridge with an IP address really allow it to do its job better? Is that actually going to improve the lives of anyone who aren’t the developers of that product? Just the other day I was reading about a tech startup that wants to be able to beam ads into your car’s GPS screen. Video ads! On a screen! To tell drivers what’s nearby when they can just…continue to look out the window because they’re supposed to be driving a goddamn car.
The problem of a world run by tech companies is that the tech isn’t being made to accommodate us, we are being forced to accommodate the tech.
