Europe’s right-to-repair movement is surging – and winning

mckitterick:

mostlysignssomeportents:

Earlier this month, European right-to-repair activists sounded the alarm, warning that the model right-to-repair legislation that had been proceeding through the EU legislative process had been hijacked by lobbyists who had gutted its core protections and were poised to make repairs even harder in the EU.

But Europeans rallied, and now they seem to have the upper hand. Pressure groups like Germany’s Schraube locker!? (Screwloose!?) have organised mass write-in campaigns and other ways of lobbying EU officials, to good effect. This week, they scored a victory over refrigerator design, securing an amendment to the EU’s pending Eco Design and Energy Label Directives (where the right-to-repair rules are enshrined) that will require refrigerator manufacturers to design their appliances to be repairable with everyday tools, and to supply their customers with spare parts and manuals so they can keep their property in good working order.

It could be a model for many kinds of devices, a return to the Maker Manifesto’s call for “screws not glue” and “user-replaceable parts.”

At the vanguard of the movement are people from ex-Soviet states, where deprivation was the mother of innovation, so that thrifty, ingenious home repairs were the key to human thriving. This ethic is also key today, if we are to reduce our material consumption, carbon footprint, and complicity in the human rights abuses committed in the name of securing the conflict minerals in our devices.

https://boingboing.net/2018/12/14/screwloose.html

SOLARPUNK SOLIDARITY

If you can’t fix it, you don’t own it.

(via ms-demeanor)

studyeliza:

gaypriori:

punk-memelord-enthusiast:

skeletonmug:

dicksandwhiches:

Bayard Rustin was an openly gay Black man who was Martin Luther King’s right hand man. He planned the Million Man March and was subject to scrutiny for his sexuality and deemed a “deviant” and “pervert”.

Bayard Rustin can be found in nearly every picture of MLK yet he has undoubtedly been erased from history. We have to fix that.

Well then, let’s bring that name back.

Bayard Rustin, openly gay, human rights activist, proud black man.

(the guy on the left in case you wondered)

Yeah he was literally the guy who was the head of planning the March on Washington.

If you want to learn more about him, there’s a great documentary on him called Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin

You can watch the full documentary here (until March 31st, 2016)

I did a research project on him, Ella Baker, Claudette Colvin and Stokely Carmichael comparing their contributions to the Civil Rights Movement to the lack of recognition and misrepresentation they received in commonly used high school American History textbooks. All of these people played major roles in the Civil Rights Movement—almost on par with MLK—yet they go largely unnoticed or unfairly pushed aside not only during their time, but even now in classes on American History. These men and women deserve to be remembered.

(via ms-demeanor)

gallusrostromegalus:

cherryistired:

gallusrostromegalus:

hollyblueagate:

if you don’t know the difference between a hare and a rabbit you’ve never gazed into the cold wild eyes of a hare and known that if it could speak it would speak backwards

Jack Rabbits are North American Hares and they’re the WORST to encounter at night becuase:

• You all know how big a rabbit is.  Jack Rabbits and hares are much bigger. they’re the size of large cats or small dogs or just-walking-age children.
  
• They also like to hang out in gangs of a hlf dozen to over 30.
• and in the middle of backcountry dirt roads.
• perhaps they’re dustbathing
• or blood sacrifce
• I don’t know because when you come up the road at night because your dog has a tiny bladder and needs to go out at midnight and you have no yard so you’re walking him on the dirt road around your neighborhod because you might aw well get some stargazing in, and you come just over the ridge to see a coven of twenty jackrabbits in the middle of the road
• and
• they
• all
• stand
• up
• not just onto all fours like a proper prey animal
• No they get up on thier hind legs and don’t just sit but STAND like tiny rabbit-skinned toddlers, wobbing slightly as they stare directly at you eyes shining in your flashlight’s glow

• …Blood Red.
  
• And a chill goes through you on that warm july night because while they’re a puntable size and allegedly herbivores they’re standing and watching you just like people and you are vastly outnumbered.
• everyone freezes
• you’re considering your odds aganst roughly 200lbs of Suspiciously Humanoid Hare
• and they’re considering their odds against you
• the only sound in the never-ending high desert wind 
• somewhere in your peripheral vision you can see the streetlights but they seem awfully far away
• The nearest Jack Rabbit
• Blinks
• and takes a single shuffling step

• forward
• You area an overdevloped monkey and your prefrontal cortex is capable of some amazing feats but it runs very slowly compared to the reflexes of a rabbit and you’re frozen as you desperately scramble for the appropriate course of action, hands feeling thick and useless, mouth dry and feet imeasurably heavy there’s no way you’d outrun THESE, god there’s a rabies outbreak going around that shit’s not curable-
  
• The Dog
  
  
  
  
• L U N G E S
• It’s only the briefest of movements but the animal you’d picked out for his gangly legs and floppy ears and goofy smile is suddenly a dark shape of muscle and teeth and had flung himself at the horrible goblin rabbits faster than mere physics should dictate, appearing in the circle of the flashlight for only the briefest of moments before the jolt from the leash makes you stumble and the light falters
• The Jack Rabbits
  
  
  
  
• Scatter
• Vanishing into the faintly starlit sagebrush in as so many faint gray shapes that might be mistaken for the dustclouds they kick up
  
  
  
• Later, you sit on the couch disquieted
• and you wonder
• If the sight of the Jack Rabbits standing and studying you was frightening enough to make you yearn for the safety of the yellowed streetlights
• what must it be like from thier end?
• what terrifying creature 
• deliberately ties itself
• to something so horrible
  
• As a Dog?

@gallusrostromegalus that last bit gave me such a strong mental image I absolutely had to draw it

WELL HOLY SHIT.

CONGRATULATE, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I WAS GOING FOR.

is it ok if I print it out and stick it on the fridge?

Brilliant story, brilliant drawing.

(via ms-demeanor)

weirdpolishlastname:

big-bang-holmes:

big-bang-holmes:

big-bang-holmes:

Would any if you peeps be interested in if I made a little post about spray paint? Like I want to show some people how I do it and maybe if y'all feel like it y'all can try it

Nobody said yes but

TO BAD

let’s

Do this

Step one

Get some supplies obviously, all you will need is

• Spray paint (doesn’t even have to be much, you can do this with 3-4 colors or 1000)
• Glossy paper. Photo paper also works, you can figure it out
• Anything round to make the planet with that can cover it up
• Determination
• Also a snack.

Step two

Cover yo thang

You’re just gonna spray enough so that you’ll be able to make out the shape, you don’t need much at all and it’s even better if you don’t use much.

Look at that nice circle

Step three

color, this part is so fun and you can do anything you want with it, i made mine the pansexual flag

I know it looks crazy but trust me, you’re gonna have to cover it up with a few colors.

Think about where you want the light to come from, the black is the shadow farthest from the light, the white is where the light is shining on it and the yellow in the middle is so that it’s not so bland. For the color in the middle put whatever was underneath right there (or not I’m not your mom)

STEP FOURRR

You’re gonna ball up some paper and lay it over it, will the paper to get some if the paint up and lift

I wasn’t to happy so I did it again, you can do this as much or as little as you want.

This looks better to me.

Step whatever

More shadows, this is optional but I prefer it. Black in the bottom and white on the top as before but this time not as much so the color comes through

STEP TO THE LEFT NOW YALL

Okay cover it up againnnn

Paint that while thing black. The entire thing, completely. This is always fun

The bright side (light)

Okay this is optional but I love it, I’m gonna add light… Just look

sooo start with blue in the corner where it’s coming from and a bit in the other side behind the planet, stay with me on this.

White to brighten it up…..

Now another fun part

Stars

You can do this anyway you want, I just put on a glove and spray some on two of my fingers and flick it on but there’s loads of ways, check it.

THATS SO SIMPLE AND IT LOOKS AMAZING

now the reveal…..

SO PRETTY

Inspiring! I’m already having ideas of what my planet would look like.

(via ms-demeanor)