Time As My Only Measure

One of the worst days of grad school so far.
Naturally, I turn to pictures of Idris Elba for comfort.
#selfcare

A sampling of the pics I posted on multibeautiful (which you should subscribe to!).

  

You can see how this would be a great way to unwind.

I'm back into the school grind, sort of (not really, but I turned an assignment in so there's that). I'm hoping this means that I'll go back to my usual posting regularity, this past uncalled for hiatus has been odd, even for me.

I've decided that the most depressing part of this US election mess is that because the obvious Dem nominee is Barack Obama, we are stuck with a billion pointless Republican debates. So far this has meant that the public has to be subjected to incredibly offensive statements by candidates pandering to an even more offensive base (racism and imperialism seem to be the big applause themes). I almost wish the Democrats would do a "for the sake of it" primary series, just so the only mention of election isn't always about the current assholes comprising the Republican nominees.

Then again, Stephen Colbert was running in South Carolina, and that was a spritz of fresh air (but more on the fact that his Super PAC is very real and actually taking real donations from people, later).

SOPA/ACTA issues. Very real, very serious and mean more than just Megaupload being taken down (which was taken down without such horrid laws, we'd all like to mention). An entire online way of life is threatened; it's mad to think of how this is happening, that this is happening at all. I think I'm still in shock (which may sound incredibly over-dramatic but is really where I'm at right now). And not all piracy is black and white evil, dammit.

I’m not saying that we are all criminals for participating in file sharing. It is my hope that content distributors will start to realize why people pirate. That it isn’t just because it is free. It’s also goddamned convenient. They need to accept that times have changed. We don’t want to buy their DVDs. We don’t want overpriced cable bundles with 40 channels we will never watch. Photoshop should not cost 700 goddamn dollars. We want safe, reliable content available for download instantly and priced within reason. By not providing this, distributors are almost begging people to steal their shit. Frogman

More on LJ via amethystfirefly:

LiveJournal's leadership has made it clear that their future American business strategy lies in generating new traffic rather than catering to the service's current small-but-loyal membership. The challenge for Petrochenko and other executives at LiveJournal will be redefining the brand's identity in a crowded media marketplace. [source]

Sincerely hoping that there isn't a single LJ user at all shocked at this sort of response to their loyalty. I'm trying really hard not to turn this post into a DW IS SHINY one, so I'll stop there.