A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, 'What does love mean?'
The answers they got were broader, deeper, and more profound than anyone could have ever imagined !

'When my grandmother got arthritis , she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time , even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.' Rebecca- age 8

'When someone loves you , the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.'
Billy - age 4

'Love is when a girl puts on perfume
and a boy puts on shaving cologne
and they go out and smell each other.' Karl - age 5

'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.' Chrissy - age 6

'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.' Terri - age 4

'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him , to make sure the taste is OK.' Danny - age 8

'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and just listen.' Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate.' Nikka - age 6
(we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.' Noelle - age 7

'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still
friends even after they know each other so well.' Tommy - age 6

'During my piano recital , I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.

He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.' Cindy - age 8

'My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.' Clare - age 6

'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.' Elaine-age 5

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.' Chris - age 7

'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him
alone all day.' Mary Ann - age 4

'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.' Lauren - age 4

'When you love somebody , your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' (what an image) Karen - age 7

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross..' Mark - age 6

'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.' Jessica - age 8

And the final one: The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his
wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard , climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, 'Nothing, I just helped him cry.

I see there's been backup day, now I think there should be subscription day.

A day where you gather all subscription costs you pay for, sum them up per month and per year, realize that's a bunch of money for services you might be using rarely, and cancel services or downgrade plans or switch to cheaper providers.

Many subscription economy companies have been jacking up their prices in the last few years, way faster than inflation.

Saw someone elsewhere assert that Britain is “one of the least corrupt countries in the world”, and couldn’t let that go unchallenged, so here’s what I said:

Only because of this one weird loophole, which I will explain below:

For the last decade, the previous government has been awarding public contracts for infrastructure, etc, to what are essentially shell companies run by their mates. These companies then do the bare minimum for as long as possible, which if you drive round the UK, is why you see all those road “improvement” works which do nothing and take forever and never seem to have anyone working. It took two years to replace a roundabout with a set of traffic lights near my apartment, for example. Other examples: large amounts of “PPE equipment” during Covid which turned out to be useless junk.

Obviously they aren’t actually spending anything but a trivial amount going through the motions, so what happens to the rest of the money, which let’s remember, was raised by taxes.

Well, it gets donated back to the ruling party as “political donations”, and then if the pretend contractor does a good enough job of this, they get an knighthood, or even a seat in the House of Lords for “services rendered”.

Now you might think that this sounds corrupt, and you would be right. It sounds deeply corrupt, but apparently it’s not because a lot of the global agencies which work out corruption indices are based in, checks notes, London, and are probably in on the scam, and get to define what “corruption” means, and define it to mean, “not this”.

Et voila! You have a country with one of the biggest wealth gaps in Europe funnelling vast amounts of public money to populist spaffers in government, all legal, laundered and sanitised.

The whole of UK society is like this. It’s how it works, and once you see it you either join in, or walk away in disgust.

Donald Trump has:
- cancelled all public appearances for the next 3 weeks
- all but stopped all social media advertising except what is already ordered and in the pipeline
- completely stopped all TV advertising for his campaign

However, the campaign is still spending money. Every journalist working in America should currently be asking themselves how/where that money is being spent.

When a fascist stops spending time & money trying to achieve power legally, it's because they are now spending time & money working to seize it illegally.

Eeeh, it's hot outside.
The common Drolf is hiding away in cool spots, waiting for conditions to improve.

#fursuit
#fursuiteveryday
#furryfandom
#furry

📸&🪡 @Areksim (Vino Studios)

Reading old camping manuals from like 100+ years ago is wild.

You think you’re ultralight? These dudes didn’t carry water, or filters, because it was mostly all still safe to drink. They didn’t carry food because there were so many fish and edible plants everywhere.

The biosphere is so fucked up now that we save to carry all of this stuff with us. Can’t just be a human alive in the woods anymore.

• Don't watch it (21%, 22 votes)
• Watch the whole thing from start to finish (31%, 32 votes)
• Treat it as a podcast and listen to the audio only (15%, 16 votes)
• Watch it in chunks as I get around to it (32%, 33 votes)

"Our longevity tests found less than a 1% decrease in fit effectiveness in pollution masks worn every day for 30 days."

So you can leave out your mask to dry after each use and then use it again.

https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/do-n95-masks-expire/

Smart Air

Do masks expire? Scientists tested new and expired masks to see if N95 masks expire. Tested on real people, even 10-year-old N95s were as effective as new.

^{Tyler Vanzo (Smart Air)}

Have you ever considered setting up an IXP? In a new article series, Thomas Liske (@liske) and his colleagues from TU Dresden share their experiences in setting up DD-IX, an Internet exchange driven by a local grassroots community.

Read it on #ripelabs
🔗https://labs.ripe.net/author/liske/ixp-from-scratch-building-a-new-ix/

#ixp #routing #peering

I've just been playing creating a Gimp 2.10 plugin to let me make 8 page zines from a single sheet of paper. The plugin lets you choose the paper size. It then resizes the images automatically and places them in the right place.

The image below shows what the result looks like. When printed from a full size copy, you can print it, create a single cut and then fold it into an 8 page zine.

I can't add the full size zine as it's too big for Mastodon. If you like making these types of zines, you can grab the plugin from https://github.com/henspace/gimpPlugins

You can find the full size images on my other site at https://www.henspace.com/p/zine-maker.html

#zine #zines #comic #gimp #photogimp

👯

#Bats

What can I say?
Four and a half hour really paid off tonight!

HAPPY HAPPY

#AuroraBorealis

"you can't debug print shaders" oh yeah? well check this shit out

that's right, a whole ass view matrix, served directly from the GPU

oh cool so figuring out how to transfer issues between repos in different github orgs is just like reading the solutions for early 90s sierra adventure game puzzles

i trained for this

Why are sentences for violent disorder lower than those for peaceful protest?

The criminal justice system should not treat rioters less harshly than demonstrators

By me, at Prospect

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/law-and-order/67536/why-are-sentences-for-violent-disorder-lower-than-those-for-peaceful-protest

Why are sentences for violent disorder lower than those for peaceful protest?

^{www.prospectmagazine.co.uk}

PSA: if you have an autistic friend that you're making any sort of arrangement with, PLEASE for all that is holy, give them *clear fucking answers!* Solid. Direct. Answers. I mean "yes," "no" "that won't work," etc. Solid. Fucking. Answers. Clear cut. Direct. Concrete. If you can't give one say "I need more time to decide," followed by actually following up with aforementioned solid answers.

I can't tell you how much it tears me apart getting "maybe" or "that could work," or "I'm not sure" and never getting a concrete "yes" or "no." An important fact about autism is that we often can't or struggle greatly to read between the lines and these slippery non-answers leave me and I'd wager many other autistic people guessing. Yet so often it would be less painful to rip my own fucking teeth out than it would be to get solid answers out of anybody these days and it makes me wanna scream! I'm begging you all, PLEASE give us solid answers... #autism #actuallyautistic

Zebras are nature's punks. 🎵🦓

Art by Tauseko.

#mlp #MyLittlePony #furryart #zebra #furry

#artfight attack for Blanc-Author!
I wasn't quite happy with my original drawing so I started to paint over it... then I had to paint the whole cat ... then I added a painted background..
I'm happy with how it looks now but oh boy that was a lot of time spend on this tiny friendly fire :'D

#artfight2024 #art #AnimalArt

PSA for UK folks (especially supportive parents of trans kids and/or folks using GenderGP

Susie Green has co-founded a new healthcare service for trans folk of all ages in the UK called Anne Health

It went live officially from the date of Trans Pride Brighton (20th July 2024), from what we've been told

Unlike GenderGP, which has sadly fired a lot of staff and replaced them with "AI" chatbots, Anne Health has commited to hiring qualified individuals who care and are knowledgeable about the best trans healthcare practices possible

Anne Health is planning to operating as a non-profit, and will take donations to help offer services to those who cannot afford the fees, so you can donate to them.

And they're open to shared care agreements with any trans friendly GPs willing to work with them.

Boosts very much welcomed and please do share the word with family, friends, and loved ones

#trans #transgender #transgenderUK #transition #TransFem #TransMasc #enby #NonBinary #agender #bigender #genderfluid #genderqueer #2spirit #queer #LGBTQ+ #LGBTQIA+ #TransHealthcare #NHS #TransRights #TransRightsAreHumanRights #TransYouthAreLoved #TransKidsDeserveBetter #TransKidsDeserveToGrowUp

Anne - Gender-affirming care for trans+ patients

Gender-affirming care that’s convenient, accessible and compassionate. Supporting transgender children, young people and adults to access the care they need. Gender-affirming healthcare for trans+ people of all ages.

^{Anne - Gender-affirming care for trans+ patients}

Because someone asked.....

Yes!

Signal is blocked in several countries but you can set up a proxy server to help people access Signal no matter where they live. Here’s how:

https://signal.org/blog/proxy-please

Thank you for helping keep Signal available for everyone who needs it.

To share your proxies use #SignalProxy

Proxy Please: Help People Connect to Signal

Several countries have recently blocked Signal, leaving their residents without a trusted and safe place to communicate.

^{Signal Messenger}