[forthegothicheroine]

I like to think there's an Ankh-Morpork show (perhaps a live stage show) that's a combination of Great British Bakeoff and Forged in Fire where they bake dwarf bread and then attack a ballistic dummy with it.

[galileosballs]

The nice thing about solar power is that once you've built a solar farm the sun does not then need to be shipped to you through a series of international shipping lanes that can be cut off by other people's governments in response to the actions of other other people's governments. The sun is not subject to the stupid decisions of people you did not vote for in response to the stupid decisions of other people you did not vote for. The sun does not need to go through the Strait of Hormuz.

Even if you don't care about any of the other arguments in favour of solar power, this is a really good argument in favour of solar power.

[sinni-ok-sessi]

I do think the ability to emoji-react is a net win for human communication. not only does it give you an outlet for 'I see and acknowledge this but don't have a verbal response' but it also adds a pleasing alethiometer element to things

my coworker announces that he's off to the dentist. someone reacts with a tooth emoji. is this a statement of dentist solidarity? a wish for my coworker to return with more (or fewer?) teeth than he set out with? simple word association? who can say

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

may you one day soon find the courage to open the tubberware container in the back of the fridge inshallah

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

@abx5 how does it feel to have single handedly saved the lives of thousands?

#put it in the deepest and coldest part of the freezer for a few days before dealing with it #it wont save you but it will minimize the stench

[winter-wise]

One thing about LMB is that she loved the words 'belike' 'perforce' and 'withal' and wanted to use them whenever she could get away with it. It fell in naturally for The Curse of Chalion but for the Vorkosigan Saga she had to make them be part of Barryaran slang so that she could keep using them.

[victusinveritas]

[thatdisasterauthor]

Me for 30 years: I would like to learn how to drive our cabin tractor.

My dad, for 30 years: -never teaches me how to drive the cabin tractor-

My dad on a random Friday night twenty minutes before dark after the tractor hasn't been working all day: hey, come for a ride with me so I can test it, and if it dies I can send you back to the house for tools.

Me: Sure.

My dad five minutes into the ride: -gets up out of his seat as the tractor is rolling- You drive now! :D

Me: Wait, what?

My dad: :) :) Drive.

Me: -sits down and starts driving because I apparently have no choice-

My dad, the second the sun is fully down and it is so cloudy you now can't see shit: Don't ask for headlights. They don't work.

Me: 😑 Sir.

(To be clear, I know how to drive stick, which is what this tractor is, the "learning to drive it" part is more learning how to make our janky old tractor from the fifties actually FUNCTION. We made it back to the house. It was fine.)

[ifirestone]

I feel like thats just kinda how you get taught to drive a tractor. When I was like 10 my dad hooked up the mower thing (we mowed the activities field as a favor) set me on the seat and told me not to run him over.

[thatdisasterauthor]

THE THING IS.

Learning to drive it is the easy part. Took less than a minute of explanation. The biggest issue with this thing is getting it fucking started.

He did not show me that part.

[hypnospilot]

My grandpa taught me how to drive the tractor just fine. He died before he could show me how to start it.

[thatdisasterauthor]

You understand my predicament.

[ahedderick]

When I was fourteen my father wanted some help with making hay one day and drafted me to drive the tractor. I had never driven before at all. H put me in the seat, propped himself beside me long enough to point to some (but not all) major controls, and then proclaimed me ready to go. "If you want to slow down," he said, "Push the clutch, here."

The brake, you will note, is normally the slowing-down control. However, pushing in the clutch will slow the damned thing down, because it takes it out of gear. IF YOU ARE ON FLAT GROUND, which we were at that moment. He was lifelong devoted to doing every single thing in the most complicated and backwards way possible.

Off we chugged, slowly, to the hayfield behind Neighbor J's house.

A field that is distinctly sloped.

We went round a few times and then I looked back to check on things. Something had gone wonky with the baler, and my father decided to jump down onto the tongue of the wagon and try to fix the baler without stopping. I could tell it would be a good idea for me to slow down, so I stepped on the clutch.

Moments later the tractor, baler, and wagon were rolling backwards down the hill. My father, teetering on the narrow connection between the wagon and baler, was clinging for his life. "BRAKE!" he bellowed, and I stomped in a panic.

Nobody died, but it was a damned close thing. And he never did actually teach me how to drive. I don't think he was capable of teaching; he could not organize his thoughts well and he had been driving so long he just ran on pure instinct. Shaking my head.

[oodlyenough]

a thing about me is i basically never notice a wig or other kind of hairpiece in tv/movies. it has to be party city territory for me to even twig it. people will complain about characters' wigs looking bad and i will nod along but there is like a 90% chance i did not notice for a second while watching. i consider this mostly a blessing.

[creekfiend]

gender essentialism is soooo funny bc it's like "this is what women are like" and you're like "I've met women and many of them, if not the majority, have not been like that" and it's like "well women SHOULD be like that" and you're like "why should women be like that" and its like "because that's what women are like"

[animperfectangelsblog]

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

I love that doctor who actors range from ‘doesn’t even know basic facts about the series’ to ‘looms truther’

[truestoriesaboutme]

I can't quite explain it, but Clue (1985), The Princess Bride (1987), Galaxy Quest (1999), and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) are all the same genre

[short-and-angry]

They aren't a spoof (roast) or a love letter (tribute), but a best man's speech; an expression of love with a gentle ribbing on ocassion.

[csny]

this is sort of sickening to me. can they swap

[aiden-morse]

“If you love cooking with garlic, you know it does a lot of good in recipes by helping build flavor — but its strong odor can linger for hours, especially on our hands. We’ve all been in the situation where after preparing a wonderful meal, we’re left with the stench of garlic on our fingers — yuck! There are a few tricks people often recommend to eliminate the smell: lemon juice or vinegar, rubbing your hands with salt, or even using toothpaste! But those don’t work — all they do is mask the garlic smell. So what does really work? Stainless steel.”

[deeptalkswithmonica]

cooking with garlic? jerk off your sink

[bucketofdeltav]

STRONGLY recommend jerking off a stainless steel spoon or just getting one of those gimmicky stainless steel ‘soap’ bars rather than using your expensive and hard to replace plumbing hardware - the stainless steel does get the stinky sulfur compounds off your hands, yes, but they have to go somewhere, and where they go is onto the steel. And stainless steel is not actually corrosion proof if you keep putting sulfur compounds on it frequently long term!

- local friendly chemist with considerable experience in What Things Can Eat What Grades of Stainless Steel (for spacecraft purposes mainly; don’t rub copper chloride on your taps either).

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I am currently finishing up some training in work, and the topic is on helping international students to avoid culture shock. They have just presented me with this graphic:

They've captioned it with "This is a bit of fun but it highlights the underlying point" but I am now completely stuck on "I'm sure it's my fault" - "It's your fault" - "Why do they think it was their fault?" as an interaction

[noknowshame]

people in fiction are always making plans like "how about tuesday?" and then leaving without elaborating. what time? where? do you even have each other's numbers? deeply stressful

[blondebrainpowered]

Cat paw prints in the medieval floor tiles of the 12th century CE St Peter Church in Wormleighton, England

[aceofblueheart]

last night i couldn't sleep so i was thinking of bilingual culture (as you do). and i realised monolingual people probably aren't familiar with all the ways that can work. so, some examples:

Probably the one shown most often in media: One person is bilingual but their partner / family speak the majority language with them.

two multilingual people in a relationship speak a third language that is the native language of neither. 2.5: they have children and each speaks their native language to their child, so the child grows up hearing three languages daily.

two bilingual people who understand each other's languages each speak their native language to each other. looks freaky from the outside, since they're speaking different languages.

two bilingual people speak one person's language with each other, but each uses their own native language with their child. the child uses either language depending on which parent they're addressing. can also look freaky from the outside, since unless you know the pattern there seems to be lot of random language switching going on.

two bilingual people who speak the same languages will use whichever language makes sense for the context, ie. if they work in a different language than they usually speak with the other person in, they might switch to the "work"-language to talk about work.

and many more, obviously.