Gate's open, come on in @advocake - Tumblr Blog

“bits to use in everyday conversations”

this is probably my favorite tiktok of all time and I finally got around to showing it to my dad the other day and now he comes home every day and tells me about all the places he saw crumbling concrete and says "guess they didn't add enough chinchilla flakes"

unauthorisedeva

NOOOO ROCKY GETTING FRUSTRATED THAT GRACE DOESNT UNDERSTAND HIM ARKRKFLSLA

pixiebeepopples

Ohhhh I love this new interview!!! Much love for Rocky!!!

spiteswallow

I humbly suggest that true crime freaks should get into learning about scammers instead of serial killers. I LOVE reading about fraud and grifts and pyramid schemes. true crime ppl have all this paranoid energy about murder, which is rare in the grand scheme of things.....maybe instead that could be channeled into some productive rage toward capitalism.

spiteswallow

And u know a side effect of learning about scam artists is that you start to understand certain things about economics, and just how STUPID these systems are and how easily they are taken advantage of....and I'd much rather people gained a passing familiarity with economics than whatever armchair psychologist shit these true crimers get on. We need fewer people who think they're experts on "sociopaths" and more people who understand how people like Elizabeth Holmes and the WeWork guy were able to do what they did

lindstromm

Here are some of my favorite books about financial scams:

The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques.

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (about the 2008 stock market collapse).

The Caesar's Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Corruption of the Private Equity Industry by Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap. (I admit I've never finished this one; the writing is hard to read.)

The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, by Zac Bissonette. I bought this book because of the subtitle and I have never regretted it. You must read it.

Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale. They turned this one into a movie! The book was very different and is worth reading.

The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion, by Elliot Brown and Maureen Farrell. I haven't read this one yet, but it's on my tbr pile!

Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church, by Gareth Gore. I'm reading this one right now. The author is a financial journalist who stumbled onto this story by unraveling a bank failure in Spain.

And here's a list of more non-fiction books about fraud and financial scams. The first book on this list is about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, which I also haven't read yet.

Enjoy!

narcissuspseudonarcissus

I want to add, if you’ve got access to it, the BBC Radio 4 series (or podcast) “Scam Secrets” is a fascinating look into scams that are currently running.

mumblingsage

OP has a point about capitalism, but actually I want to reblog this as someone who recently answered the phone to a scammer and say: we need true crime to make people more vigilant in their personal lives. You're at way more risk from an unknown number calling you than from anyone slicing your Achilles' tendons as you walk through a parking lot. I don't care so much about the people scammed by Elizabeth Holmes but I do care about worried and confused senior citizens buying thousands of dollars in gift cards because they think they need to help their grandson who's in trouble in another state.

bemusedlybespectacled

Seconding this. There’s also a lot of crossover between scams and cults, which are also useful for people to be aware of. “Oh I’m not religious so I’d never fall for a cult” “oh I’m smart and savvy I’d never join a cult” oh boy do I have some fun stuff to tell you about cults.

bipolar-bubbeleh

Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing by Emily Lynn Paulson is a great intro to MLMs!

She signed up for the sisterhood, free cars, and the promise of a successful business of her own. Instead, she ended up with an addiction, b

Noooooooo!...

Never read Baldwin before?

Nonfiction

The Price of The Ticket (borrow from IA)

The Fire Next Time (pdf download)

Notes of A Native Son (pdf download)

Nothing Personal (read on IA - not great quality sorry)

The Last Interview (pdf download) (only 10 pages!)

Fiction

Giovanni's Room (pdf download)

If Beale Street Could Talk (pdf download)

BONUS

Little Man Little Man (read or pdf download on scribd) (Baldwin's only children's book)

Go Tell It On The Mountain (pdf download)

Another Country (pdf and epub download)

Sonny's Blues (pdf download)

Going to Meet the Man (pdf download)

creatingblackcharacters

My next Black History Month request:

Pick one of James Baldwin's works and read it!!! The Fire Next Time is an excellent essay, most of us are familiar with the quote on gay white people from The Last Interview but not the rest of it. If Beale Street Could Talk even has a movie!

louisegluckpdf

they won't tell you this in therapy but sometimes the best way to stop catastrophizing/anxiety is to interrupt your spiraling with "girl what the hell are you talking about"

ytpreviews

It's not a cure but you have no idea how many times this image has helped me with my OCD

blink-xyz

On sonic images that help with mental health, this one genuinely helped me more than i would like to admit

gifcraft

healthy-lindsey

THE GUYS IN THE BACKGROUND MAKE MY LIFE. THEY’RE SO PROUD OF HER. FUCK YES

mermaidmuscles

This is one of the very first things I reblogged and I still love it

the-haiku-bot

This is one of the

very first things I reblogged

and I still love it

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

formerlyluckymanticore

Reblog if you will never. Ever. Use AI in your writing.

thediscossessed

Everyone say thank you black women

eldritchbauble

PT Exercises That Have Unfucked Me

(Obligatory disclaimer that I'm not qualified to give you medical advice, but these have helped me a lot with my muscle tension and pain)

If you're feeling significant discomfort or PAIN while stretching, back off. Don't force yourself. You can always dial these exercises back and stop at the point you need to because the last thing you want is to strain something.

TMJ syndrome (jaw pain)

- Open your mouth about 80% as wide as you can for 10 seconds, repeat 3x.

- Push your jaw forward, then open it as much as you can for 10 seconds, repeat 3x.

- Make a fist to rest your jaw on then open your mouth 10x. There should be some resistance as you're lifting the weight of your head.

Rhomboid (shoulders and upper back pain)

- Face the wall and place your arm against it in an L shape then rotate your body away from your arm to open your chest, hold for 30 seconds on both sides.

When you get more comfortable, you can extend your arm straight out behind you against the wall for a deeper stretch.

- Place one elbow on top and inside the other, hold your hands together, then lift your arms to open your shoulder blades. I can only hold this for about 10 seconds but do your best then repeat with the other arm on top.

- With your elbows bent, puff your chest out while squeezing your shoulder blades together, hold for about 10 seconds and repeat 3x.

Psoas release with pandiculation

Your psoas is a big son of a bitch muscle in the center of your body, and when it gets too tight it can affect everything from breathing to digestion. And cause a lot of pain. The exercises in this video helped me a ton. It doesn't LOOK like it does much, but it does.

This full exercise takes much longer than the others and I've found that once I did it for about a week or so, and started being aware of my posture to keep it from tightening back up, I haven't had to keep doing it all the time.

Lower back, piriformis, sciatic nerve

- Do a simple hamstring stretch with your legs straight out in front of you and feet flat against a wall to hold them at a 90* angle. Try not to bend your knees or hunch your back, just stretch as far as you're able and hold for 30 seconds.

Continue by dropping your chin to your chest so you can feel a stretch going down your spine.

- On all fours, rotate your upper body until you can feel a stretch going down the opposite side into your hips. Hold 30 seconds and repeat on the other side.

- Almost sitting cross-legged, stack your legs so that one ankle is on the other knee. Make sure both legs are parallel. Then, lean forward to feel a stretch in your piriformis (side of your ass). Hold for 30 seconds and repeat on other side.

Inner thigh

- Form a pinwheel shape with your legs, one in an L shape in front of you and the other to the side. Gently lean towards the side and press your thigh towards the floor to feel a stretch. Hold for 10-30 seconds and repeat other side.

That's about it! I try to do these exercises at least once a day especially during flare-ups, but the simpler/quicker stretches I will do multiple times throughout the day or whenever things feel tight. Consistency is key.

filmbitchz

reblog if you would give cheeses to these meeces

colleybri

Nice new Diego Luna interview with a detailed look at Kiss of the Spider Woman and Andor, plus La Máquina and a few more obscure things like the Casanova pilot and Pan y Circo. And yes, the interviewer brings up Dirty Dancing 2 😆

tincanaudio

The new Audible Harry Potter series is bad in uncomplicated, straightforward ways.

It is bad because it supports a woman who is actively funding groups that are seeking to deprive trans people of their rights in the UK and especially Scotland, where I live, where people inside the government are quietly remarking that they are struggling to fight against the groups she funds, as she has more money than God. Any money made from this new audio adaptation goes directly to funding these groups and these cases.

It is also bad because commissioning such an expansive series with such a well-known cast (Riz Ahmed?! Come on man) has eaten up the majority of Audible's commissioning budget. In the UK, the only people commissioning audio drama are the BBC (separate conversation) and Audible, and this new Harry Potter series has hoovered up resources that could have otherwise gone to new stories, new voices and money to creators that aren't actively trying to erase trans people.

I am angry at anyone who signed up to star in this, I am angry at the production companies that took on this commission, I am angry that this series continues to have a stranglehold on the UK media landscape despite all that its creator has done.

It is bad for trans people, it is bad for audio drama, it is bad for anyone working in media in the UK right now.

Do not listen to it

dailymanners

I am about going to gripe about something that's been really annoying me lately.

First let me start with a disclaimer that I am speaking generally here. Of course both the U.S. and Europe are both massive and diverse places containing hundreds of millions of people, and a lot of regional differences. Neither the U.S. or Europe are a monolith (although a lot of people on the internet speak of both places as a monolith, which I wish people would stop doing, since neither are).

I could be wrong about this, since I don't live in the U.S., and haven't visited everywhere in Europe. But between where I have visited in the U.S., and where I have visited / lived in Europe, and from what I know from my friends in the U.S. and friends in other European countries, I get the feeling that overall the U.S. has stricter disability access laws than a lot of places in Europe do, especially in regard to building codes.

Of course there are exceptions, I know New York city is abhorrently hostile in its design towards anyone elderly and/or disabled. Although when I visited New York city it really just felt on par with a lot of major European cities with how abhorrently inaccessible it was.

One example of this is that recently I saw a Reddit discussion where a USAmerican vacationing in France was surprised at how many staircases didn't have handrails, because according to this man handrails are required by law in the U.S.

The comments were all Europeans having an absolute field day with this. Pretty much all of the comments were some variation of "I can't believe Americans are too stupid and lazy to use the stairs without a handrail 🤣🤣🤣 what's wrong with you fat lazy stupid Americans that you can't even use stairs without a handrail 🤣🤣🤣 thank GOD I was born in Europe where I was just taught how to walk up and down the stairs on my own and don't need a handrail like a lazy fat stupid American 🤣🤣🤣"

A few people tried to gently point out that this was about accessibility for elderly and disabled people, and it's not cool to laugh at building codes that are about accessibility, but those commenters were usually shut down with some variation of "yeah well in MY European country if someone is disabled or becomes elderly we either move to a more accessible building or we modify our home to be more accessible, we don't sit around whining like a bunch of Americans that our building isn't already accessible 🙄"

Which is, such a cruel way to talk about accessibility. Why wouldn't disabled and elderly people deserve the same access to a building as anyone else? Are elderly and disabled people not allowed to visit friends and family? Anyone could get hit by a car today, and after that struggle with going up and down stairs without the use of a handrail for the next several months, years, possibly the rest of your life. It's so easy to feel smug when you can easily trot up and down the stairs without a handrail, but so cruel to be unwilling to consider anyone who struggles with stairs should maybe be allowed access to the same places as you.

Honestly when I go on vacation abroad with my elderly + disabled mother, it's often easier to go to the U.S. with her than other places in Europe, because the U.S. does tend to be more accessible (in my experience, and except for New York city ofc) making going around to different public places with my mom generally a lot easier than somewhere like France or the Netherlands.

Out of all the things you could clown on the U.S. about, why you gotta go for accessibility of all things? It's disgustingly ableist and ageist, and I have to wonder if these people actually just hate disabled people / accessible design, and are using the U.S. as an excuse to hate on disabled people and accessible design.

raincitygirl76

I’m a Canadian. Our disability access is probably better than much of Europe (although I haven’t visited a lot of different European countries). But it’s definitely worse than the USA.

The USA has something called the Americans With Disabilites Act (ADA), and apparently it works fairly well. An American in my WhatsApp group went to a figure skating championship in Toronto a while back and was stunned that the arena didn’t have wheelchair access for spectators. Because an American arena would have.

Not everything about the USA is awful. Not everything about Canada and Europe is great.

Also, I live in Vancouver. We didn’t have a subway system until 1986, that’s when the Skytrain was finally built. Several of the Skytrain stations were originally built with no elevators. People with wheelchairs were expected to enter or exit the system at a different station that did have wheelchair access. In 1986.

The system wasn’t built in 1896 or 1926, when wheelchairs were a newfangled idea. It was built in 1986. British Columbian Rick Hansen’s Man In Motion world wheelchair tour started in 1985 (in Vancouver).

Or well, the Skytrain was opened in 1986. Let’s say the plans for it were finalized by 1983, since it would’ve taken a few years to build. In 1983, there was already a substantial disability rights movement in Canada, but several Skytrain stations didn’t have elevators anyway, presumably because it was cheaper.

Naturally, it eventually became politically unacceptable to make wheelchair users (and people with strollers, and people with canes or walkers, and people with suitcases) skip a station because they hadn’t bothered to put an elevator in that station.

So those stations had to be retrofitted at vast expense to make them wheelchair-accessible. It probably would’ve been cheaper to just build them accessible from the start, in retrospect. But we didn’t have a Made In Canada version of the ADA, so it didn’t happen.

Also, wheelchair accessibility does not only help wheelchair users. It also helps people with babies or toddlers in strollers, people using walkers, crutches, or canes, travellers with heavy suitcases, elderly people, etc, etc. I take the Skytrain several days a week, and I see all those people taking the elevator instead of the stairs or escalators.

Rick Hansen - Wikipedia

lastoneout

You know I'm really not used to being grateful to live in the US especially now but uh. Huh. Jesus fucking christ.

penrosesun

Also, bluntly, clowning on the USA for having comparatively good disability rights is spitting in the face of all of the disabled activists who made that happen. The USA didn’t just wake up with the ADA one day, and we sure as fuck didn’t just up and decide to enact it become so many of our non-disabled citizens were lazy and fat.

The fight for the ADA was long, and bitter, and every single line of it is thanks to decades tireless activism work. Evangelical religious groups widely opposed the ADA because they believed that disability (and especially particularly disabling conditions, such as being HIV+) was God’s will, and wanted disabled people to be reliant on (religious) charity. Most large corporations and business interest groups opposed the ADA, because complying with accessibility requirements might hurt their bottom line. The US Chamber of Commerce came out swinging against it. The National Federation of Independent Business called it "a disaster for small business" and fear-mongered about it shutting down mom & pop shops and throwing hard-working American out of work. Greyhound Bus Lines literally testified before Congress that they were ~so concerned~ about the costs of requiring disability accommodations that they believed that passing the ADA would be tantamount to denying all rural people access to any buses, because apparently having to install a few fold-out ramps and fold-up seats would instantly bankrupt every extant bus company.

The bill was trapped in limbo for months. It looked hopeless. A lot of people thought it couldn’t happen – that the lobbies against disability rights and the disabled were simply too strong.

And in response, hundreds of disabled protesters showed up in Washington, DC and crawled up the steps of the Capitol.

Meet the protesters who crawled their way into history—and changed how all Americans live.

How dare anyone call the USA “lazy” for our disability rights laws. We had second graders with cerebral palsy drag themselves up 100 stone steps in order to win those rights. Get the word out “lazy” out of your fucking mouthes.

lanthir

Most of the pictures I have seen of the Capitol Crawl Protest are in black and white, which is bizarre because it happened in 1990. Here's a couple pics in full colour.

chronivore

With Winnie-the-Pooh and The Battle of Hastings sharing an anniversary today, did you know that E. H. Shepard once drew this amazing scene for an exclusive book bag?

darkpaladin

I love that none of them have weapons. Except Kanga, who has a fucking morningstar.

peachfromcmbyn

that is roo

worldheritagepostorganization

World Heritage Post

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