[fandomsandfeminism]

Full time work should entitle someone to enough pay for rent, food, bills, and leisure activities. Full time work for a full life wage. You put in your 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? You should be able to afford the basic shit you need in life, no matter where you work.

[starrbear]

pisses me off that this is considered a radical statement.

[becca-cupcake]

I do agree with this but from economic standpoint if you are working at a job like McDonalds as someone flipping burgers and making fries you are getting paid for the amount of skill needed for the job. But if its any other job that requires you to have an actual skill that you can make a career out of then yeah you should be getting paid enough to live a standard life.

[geekandmisandry]

If you work FULL TIME you should be able to afford to fucking live. No, it doesn’t matter if it’s flipping burgers, these people contribute to our fucking economy and they MATTER. They should be allowed to be alive.

Jesus fucking Christ do you people hear yourselves?

[janothar]

People like this are why we can’t move on to issues like reducing how many hours is full time, or working out UBI.

We’re going to need to do that. Most people just don’t know what’s coming down the pipeline, without a major change to the structure of the economy, we’re looking at large scale permanent unemployment, even in the “skilled” labor force.

[tikkunolamorgtfo]

Also? Making food is a fucking skill. Running a fast food kitchen is a fucking skill. Operating a drive-thru is a goddamn fucking skill.

I do not know how to do these things. I have a masters degree and I have no fucking clue how to operate a deep fryer or make coffee drinks. I’d probably not be very good at it, because that kind of hands-on, fast-paced work is very hard for me.

But thankfully, there are people who are good at it, so I can do my job, and they can do theirs, and we can benefit one another by putting our skills to use in different areas. People who work in fast food are not less deserving of comfort and security in their lives just because their skills aren’t valued like they should be. That is a myth developed to deprive people of rights.

[goodness-gracious-great-balls-of]

My friend works as a medical assistant and I’ve worked at McDonald’s and Starbucks. You know there’s a lot of things you gotta learn in this typa job?

Like in addition to it being physically demanding (standing up for 4-6 hours straight, carrying heavy ice/coffee, constantly getting burned by boiling water and an oven, a lot of reaching and squatting (like a lot a lot I lost 40 FUCKING pounds in a year okay this job demands a lot from the body)), there are actual skills required. Also your skin splits from using so much antibacterial soap.

Do you know what temperature different foods have to be to prevent contamination? If it’s a “cold” or “hot” plate?? Do You know how long food can be out before bacterial contamination can happen?? Do you know the difference between say 1% and heavy whipping cream? Can you teach a chemistry class using milk????? That’s p much what you gotta learn to be able to do. My friend who works as a medic was surprised, because I do more in my day than they do, and THEY told me that. They were shocked how much I actually do; I am on my feet more, talking to more people, I have a working knowledge of food germs food born illnesses and chemistry, I gotta do the same shit with sterilizing my tools the same exact way a doctor sterilizes theirs. Etc etc.

There’s no such thing as an unskilled job. There are only undervalued skills.

[tikkunolamorgtfo]

“There’s no such thing as an unskilled job. There are only undervalued skills.”

[tehfanglyfish]

The most physically demanding job I have ever had was McDonald’s. I am fortunate now to have a different job and advanced degrees and while I do work hard now, I never come home with the same level of physical exhaustion that I had at the end of a McDonald’s shift. Plus I had to go home to the stress of not enough money, which is its own kind of hell. And anyone who wants to go on about how I made good decisions and got degrees and left the McDonald’s can just shut the fuck up.Yeah, I worked hard in college and grad school, but I also got lucky. Everyone who succeeds in this nightmare hellscape got lucky to some extent. Not everyone does. And I am not arrogant enough to think that my PhD means that I’ll never end up in fast food again. The universe/fate/whatever can be a fickle asshole. Plus the people I see attacking fast food workers who just want to be able to work and pay their damn bills (what a novel fucking concept) also seem to want to be able to buy their fast food for cheap and not get food poisoning. “Wahwah… Bust your ass to feed us safely but don’t expect compensation.” So stop giving people shit for wanting to be able to fucking exist.

[humanoidhistory]

Apollo 11 lands on the front page of the Boston Globe, July 20, 1969.

(Dan Beaumont Space Museum)

[gplusbfics]

Photos of Garak and Bashir together in “The Wire.” 

From Deep Space Nine magazine Vol. 9, 1994.

[cosplay-galaxy]

[Self] Group of Star Trek TOS Redshirts run into Kirk at CONvergence 2017 personguy

[chicenvelopements]

Make Shorts (or Pants) a Bigger Size: A DIY One Minute Video

I always have the best intentions every spring. “I’m going to lose those extra pounds and fit into my favorite shorts again.”

[humanoidhistory]

TODAY IN HISTORY: Inside mission control when the Apollo 11 astronauts first explored the Moon, July 20, 1969.

(NASA)

[sixpenceee]

Known as Spanish dancers, these mollusks are usually only a couple inches long—but can grow up to a foot and a half in length.

[kilbaro]

JESUS?? 

JESUS????

i had no idea they were so frickin huge

[madsciences]

I love them so much because they’re about as sharp as a baseball and their anatomy is ridiculous to the point of them literally being classified as plankton for years because they just sort of get blown around by the ocean and look confused, but because they lay more eggs than ANY OTHER VERTEBRATE IN EXISTENCE, evolution can’t stop them

[onewingandabrokenhalo]

Why is no big predator coming and gnawing on them?

[madsciences]

Their biggest defense is that they’re massive and have super tough skin, but they do get hunted by sharks or sea lions sometimes and they just sort of float there like ‘oh bother’ as it happens

Even funnier, because they eat nothing but jellyfish they’re really low in nutritional value anyway, so they basically survive by being not worth eating because they’re like a big floating rice cracker wrapped in leather.

[doom-exe]

So basically the only reason natural selection hasn’t taken care if them is because they are the most useless fish

[madsciences]

yes, they’ve perfected uselessness to the point of being unstoppable

a true inspiration

wannabanauthor asked:

Hi there! I love your blog! I've seen you mention a few TV shows and movies for research, and I was wondering what your opinion is on the show Leverage and it's accuracy for social engineering in potentially violent situations. I remember one character saying that "Thieves look for entrances, but grifters create them." They'll often use approaches like this to avoid violence.

howtofightwrite answered:

If the question is: can you use social engineering in order to defuse or avoid violent situations? The answer is yes.

Grifters are conmen, and like spies, they don’t want to fight unless it is absolutely necessary. Whether they can fight or know how isn’t really the point: combat makes messes, big messes, and draws the kind of attention they don’t want/can’t afford.

As for the line, “thieves look for entrances, but grifters create them” the point of it is that grifters focus on people as the exploitative aspect to get what they want. After all, it doesn’t matter how good your security system is if your infiltrator is expected to be there. When someone opens the door for them, they didn’t have to break in.

It is worth pointing out though, being able to stop, defuse, avoid, or redirect violence via social engineering (especially when the character is the target) is very difficult and requires someone who excels at rapidly changing their story/manipulating under life or death pressure while also maintaining their consistency/re-establishing their innocence/regaining their target’s trust.

That’s masterclass social engineering. The average person, even the average grifter can’t do it. When we see Nate Ford, Sophie Devereaux, or Michael Westen on Burn Notice socially engineer their way out of potentially explosive and violent scenarios, we’re supposed to understand this level of manipulation is very difficult. You need a solid ability to read people, predict their behavior patterns, understand how to shift your role so you suddenly seem trustworthy, confuse them, and then redirect their anger somewhere away from you.

You can see another variant of this kind of social engineering on display in The Negotiator. Samuel L. Jackson’s character is a hostage negotiator. Deliberately maneuvering a man who’s taken a child captive around his apartment so he can be taken out. You can see him joking with the target, gaining his trust, distracting him, and guiding him off topic until he’s in a position to be neutralized.

The Grifter is not a fighter, they are a talker and their trick is getting people to move however they want. A skilled grifter can slip in, turn the best of friends against each other, and walk away without a care. Grifters don’t punch. They trick other people into doing the punching for them. When sitting down to write a Grifter, remember: their first instinct is getting others to act in their place, to create the openings they need, and be their fall guy.

On the whole, I’ve liked Leverage ever since the episode where Eliot pointed out that guns are ranged weapons, and the most common mistake people make is giving up the distance advantage by getting in too close. However, I’ve only watched the first season. I liked what I saw, it’s an enjoyable caper show in a similar vein to The Equalizer, Person of Interest, or Ocean’s Eleven. Not quite in there with the original Law & Order when it comes to accuracy (in this case for cops) but certainly better than White Collar, which uses similar techniques (though never, ever pay attention to White Collar’s usage of the FBI… ever). The X-Files, meanwhile, fudges a bit but it’s pretty good when you’re wanting to get a grasp of the FBI’s culture and what happens to someone who doesn’t come from a military/law enforcement background.

Of course, the patient zero for these types of shows is the original Mission: Impossible. The television show, not the Tom Cruise movies. Mission: Impossible is all about flipping people and manipulating them into positions to do what you want. The A-Team is its slightly more pulpy counterpart, but its a similar (though far less subtle) deal.

On the whole, Leverage tends to explain itself better, which is helpful when you’re trying to learn or take techniques from a television show rather than just absorb.

The reason why I often suggest Burn Notice and Spy Game is not necessarily just because they’re good, but also because they teach. The narrator on Burn Notice, especially in the first season will offer up a lot of helpful/beginner tradecraft for a variety of situations. This, ultimately, will help you more for taking pieces and creating your own characters than a show that’s trying for smoke and mirrors like White Collar. The same situation is there with Spy Game, where Robert Redford’s character is teaching Brad Pitt’s on how to be a spy. Ultimately, more helpful in the long run than just watching The Recruit. The Michael Mann films like Heat and Collateral are exceptionally good for learning tradecraft, but you have to know that’s what you’re watching/looking for. You’ll learn more by watching them together, rather than separately. The Borne Identity novels are also very good at showing the tradecraft, while the Le Carre ones tend to be a little more hit and miss.

When you’re new, you want sources that are free with their information. Who are good at getting you to think, to take what you’re seeing and apply it to new settings. You may not ever figure out how to build a car bomb, but learning about how the thought process of a spy, criminal, or conman works will serve you better for your writing than a hundred other movies that only show.

After you’ve drawn back the curtain then you can turn to those other shows, novels, and narratives with new eyes. Once you see what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and why when they don’t explain you’ll get more out of those other sources than you did before.

When you’re watching a well put together show like Leverage, start questioning character motivations. Not just whether the social engineering there works, but why the characters are choosing to go that route or which routes they prefer. Leverage gives you five characters with different specialties, four thieves and the guy who made a career catching them. They all think in different ways and have different approaches when it comes to problem solving. Leverage offers up a heist per episode, so you have lots of opportunities to see the characters in action. Evaluate their problem solving methods and you’ll come away with more than just questioning whether or not it works.

How and Why.

Then, go find a good video on YouTube where a professional magician explains pickpocketing. It’s the art of misdirection.

Once you understand basic theoretical underpinnings (whether or not you could ever actually pull the real thing off) then you can apply it to many different situations in a fictional context.

When it comes back to applying this to the combat arts, learning to see the big picture is the first major difference between trained and untrained. The untrained only copy surface level, singular techniques, while trained delves deeper to understand how these techniques work together.

My advice for when you’re wanting to pick and choose television shows for accuracy is to check who their consultants are/were, and what experts in the show’s chosen field say about it. That doesn’t always guarantee accuracy, but it will help you flip through the rave reviews.

If you want to watch more fun shows with Timothy Hutton or just like detective shows, I recommend Nero Wolfe.

-Michi

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[goingdownmycase]

My favorite narcissist.