So, I should clarify, since I've been occasionally reblogging things with an optimistic outlook, or at least that imply some hope for tomorrow:
I... don't have that.
I'm not optimistic. I'm not hopeful. I've... in a lot of ways, I've all but given up and retreated to fictional worlds, abandoning the real one for comforting fantasies.
But.
I know a lot of people are still out there, still determined, still fighting. I may not be able to join them -- I may not ever be able to join them -- but I never want to be a voice contributing to hopelessness, to tearing those folks and their voices down. I may have lost all hope, but I refuse to take hope away from others. I have succumbed to utter, nigh-on nihilistic pessimism, but I want to be wrong to have done so. And so I will occasionally continue to boost these messages of hope and positivity, that I might no longer believe in for myself, on the off chance that it'll somehow support and uplift someone else who deserves and needs it.
...This disclaimer might sound like insanity. It may very well be insanity of some form. I have no idea if any of this is even remotely coherent. But... I was feeling... disingenuous, for reblogging some of the stuff I've recently reblogged, despite not really believing in it, and so I'm hoping that this disclaimer helps clear things up and helps me avoid giving a false impression of myself. I may not be able to believe in it anymore... but I truly, genuinely hope that everyone else out there can.
Stay safe out there, y'all. I'm keeping myself going on sheer spite. I hope all of y'all can find the things that keep you all going, too.
“Why don’t you use ai” idk man beyond the obvious environmental and “this machine causes psychosis and encourages people to kill themselves” thing I think asking the equivalent of a solid D student who is also a pathological liar if they can answer my question/do the work for me seems pretty fucking stupid
There's also the additional aspect that if luxuries are what's expensive, you can choose to go without and then you don't have to make so much money. You can choose to work part-time, or seasonally, or one person can provide for a group, if living is cheap and you don't need luxury. But if being alive is expensive, you have no choice but to work a lot, regardless of how frugal your lifestyle is. And then you may as well buy yourself the latest gadget to cheer yourself up after another annoying week at work, because it costs barely anything anyway.
so judging by how astonished people are by it every time we explain it to anybody, it seems like my wife and I might really be onto something here
during the pandemic, we invented something we call "astronaut time."
when it's astronaut time, it's like we are two astronauts wearing the big helmets, moving around the station on totally separate tasks. one of us is outside the space station and one of us is inside the space station. our radios do not work and we have no way of communicating with each other. we might see each other through the lil porthole windows, but we ignore each other because we both have different things to do.
"astronaut time" is how we get total privacy when we live in the same apartment. I will pretend you don't exist. You will pretend I don't exist. we have a nonverbal, zero-contact signal for when astronaut time is over (usually "I'll draw a smiley-face on the whiteboard in the kitchen when I'm done"). No talking, stay out of each other's line of sight, we are actively avoiding each other, unless you are currently experiencing a medical emergency goodbye.
it has been. a godsend. imagine living with your partner and being able to close every single tab in your brain related to social interaction. no fear of being interrupted by a "hey, quick question--" or "sorry to bother you, but do you know where the scissors are?" or "did you want something to eat, too?" Once or twice a month, we look at each other lovingly, hold hands, and say "baby I think I need some astronaut time tonight," and the other person goes "okay cool. bye! have a nice night!" and nobody's feelings are hurt and we both go and have a lovely evening completely by ourselves.
like idk it's a small thing but it's made our lives so much nicer, so if you and your partner/roommate are both people who sometimes need total privacy in order to recharge, maybe try it
I'm the wife in question and I cannot recommend this enough. When I told my therapist about astronaut time, she asked if she could share it with the couples she councils, so even the professionals give it two thumbs up.
If at all possible, when you have an issue with someone, whether they're a neighbor, classmate, co-worker, if you feel safe doing so it's always more considerate to try taking up any issues with someone directly before reporting them to any authority figure.
For example, if your neighbor has their TV or music turned up way too loud way too late at night, it's more considerate to go knock on their door and politely ask them to turn it down rather than immediately reporting them to housing authority or calling the cops on them for a noise violation.
Or say your co-worker forgot to fill out a form for something they're supposed to fill out a form for. It's more considerate to talk to them directly and politely remind them, rather than immediately going to your manager and reporting them the first time you notice they didn't fill out the form.
We're all human and we all make mistakes, and we all deserve some grace for our mistakes rather than immediately getting in trouble with authority and/or management. Some people lose track of time and don't realize how loud their T.V. and/or stereo is, and feel bad if a neighbor brings it to their attention how loud it is, and they will feel grateful if you just talk to them instead of immediately trying to get them in trouble.
Maybe someone had to show up to work on only 2 hours of sleep, or is going through a rough patch in their personal life, or is struggling with a disorder like ADHD, and as a result made a careless mistake at work like forgetting to fill out that form. They will appreciate it if you just politely talk to them rather than getting them in trouble with management.
You've probably made careless mistakes yourself, like not realizing how loud you were being, or making a careless error at work. Would you rather someone shows you some grace by just talking to you, or immediately tries to get you in trouble for it?
Of course this is about mistakes that can be solved by just talking to someone. This doesn't necessarily apply to situations where someone is really out of line, or makes you feel unsafe. Say a co-worker keeps harassing you and calling you derogatory slurs, and it's really obvious that they know how hurtful and out of line what they're saying is. In that case by all means, just go straight to management and/or HR.
But otherwise, if they're likely just making an honest mistake with no malicious intentions (like forgetting to fill out a form or accidentally being too loud) why get them in trouble and do something that might risk something like their job, or something else important, when you can just talk to them like a person?
if theres one thing that really pissed me off from my 3 years of architecture i took in high school it's learning about how we used to have all these little techniques to maximize or minimize heat or warmth and now we just merrily abandoned all those to have the same copypaste style buildings everywhere that are often INCREDIBLY unoptimized to the local weather and climate so we can just throw more money at our heating and cooling bills
where i live it is hot as balls approximately 80% of the year. i do not want a massive butt-ugly grey mcmansion with a huge echoey open-concept kitchen-livingroom-foyer-diningroom-staircase that has huge windows so i can have an hvac unit the size of a barge heaving and straining to keep it at a constant 72 the grees. i want a north indian traditional style home with small windows to force the airflow to cool, decorative grates to limit the amount of sunlight, and a COURTYARD with a POND *smashes unspecified large object*
Honestly, Tvyek is pretty miraculous. It’s permeable to water vapor but not to water, it’s nearly impossible to tear, but can be easily cut. It’s cheap and made entirely without binding chemicals. In addition to being used for wristbands, it’s used to wrap construction sites to keep out water during construction, for tear-resistant envelopes at Fed-Ex, coveralls for mechanics, and my wallet, actually.
Fun tip, though it looks like paper, Tyvek is plastic, and cannot be recycled with paper.
One time I was talking about Robin Hood with some coworkers and one guy was like “he was bad because the people he helped learned to expect handouts” and I wanted to be like… okay can you explain how that flawed capitalist propaganda applies to feudalism
That’s an exaggeration. What was invented in the 16th century was mercantilism. Capitalism really dates for the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the rise of industry and cash crops over artisans and merchants. Vulture capitalism, with the notion that companies have no duties other than generating profit, is even younger.
I think a lot of this comes from the fact that most people don’t know the formal definition of capitalism. We all know the word, we’ve all seen the jokes, but very few people bother to actually define it unless they’re talking about political theory and philosophy, so it’s easy to end up with the impression that Capitalism = Money Can Be Exchanged For Goods And Services.
Capitalism is the economic system where most of the means of production (i.e. everything people need to have to make the stuff that everyone wants) are owned by private individuals or corporations, who then hire people to provide the labor necessary to produce things, with the intent of selling the output at a profit. It’s the difference between “you’re a carpenter and you make a chair and you sell it” and “you’re Richard Q. Richington who owns a chair factory, and you pay people to sell the chairs you paid other people to make and then all the excess money goes back to you.” There have been Richard Q. Richingtons on and off throughout history, but that being the norm for every single industry is a pretty recent development.
Or, please stop simplifying legitimate criticisms we have with this girl.
Lately I've also been seeing these same points talking about how the phandom dislikes Sam for the crime of being a teenage girl. There are legitimate problems with her character and the harmful message she spread. Frankly put I'm so sick & tired of seeing our complaints be reduced to "you only hate her because she's a woman!!"
We don't dislike Sam because she's a teenage girl (anyone who do has serious issues to work out) but because the narrative excuses her flaws and bad attitude.
What I mean by that is, she has flaws, which is perfectly fine, but rarely faces detriments for them and even gets rewarded. She got no chances of growing, in fact with each season she got worse. The writers wanted to put her on a pedestal at the cost of other female characters. ESPECIALLY nonwhite girls.
The writers do not develop her beyond confirming her endgame with Danny. She never learned to open her mind or being respectful of other girls' interests. Despite some episodes that COULD have had her views challenged & she grows from them. She never learned to temper her hypocrisy. Sam never made up with her parents - we don't even see their side of the story - her character remained the same. She ended up rewarded with a guy she called selfish and boring because he gave up his powers - to protect her & his own family. The overfocus of such romantic subplot came at the cost of literally every other girl in the series. They were put down to reinforce "Sam is Right." Heck Danny himself was dumbed down a bit to make Sam a well of wisdom.
In Girls Night Out she talked down to Jazz as if implying the latter didn't know how to handle ghosts. In her very first episode she changed the school lunch menu to food only SHE would eat without any consultation or mindfulness of allergies for that matter. In Phantom Planet she barely contributed beyond screeching at Danny for being just another boring human which only gives weight to the sentiment that she only loved him for his powers (ergo uniqueness). She was never made to held the same level as the male characters. In Fact half the time she had to get involved is a problem she started first. Sam fell in love with a guy because he looked similar to Danny's Ghost Form (again only adding more weight to the "she only loved him for his powers" argument).
Especially at the cost of characters like Valerie and Paulina. Valerie's arc never got completed because at that point the writers wanted to get the cogs going for Amethyst Ocean as quickly as possible. The last we see of her is standing in the background clapping and cheering. No resolution for her and Danny. She didn't even contribute in her Huntress Form. Valerie was a crucial part in the first two season of the show. She was relatable and sympathetic, she had challenges to overcome. Her flaws weren't excused and she had to LEARN and grow from a stuck up brat to a vengeful hunter to an understanding anti heroine. We were so close to seeing her arc get closure. Heck Valerie even gave up Danny because she wanted to protect him for her own secret life as a ghost hunter. Her chemistry with Danielle was also would've done wonders with her arc. But in S3 it was forgotten, she was forgotten, all to push the Sam as endgame. Weird considering she spied on Danny & Valerie out of envy when they went on their date. Then she had the nerve to call out Danny for spying on her & Gregor when the only reason did so to protect her form being targeted by an evil ghost or the Guys in White. Sam didn't even feel compassion for Val when her dad lost his job and she ended uo living in horrible conditions abandoned by fake friends. And Sam's supposed to be the nice one??
Paulina at least got comeuppance for her crappy behavior but again she was demonized as worse than Sam because of her femininity. You could say she and Sam were foils (which they are) but Paulina was written to be worse than she actually was while Sam did truly selfish things and never truly addressed.
The Beauty Pageant episode....boy that was a DOOZY of a plot. She willingly joined a pageant to complain about high beauty standards and shallow girls, when literally NONE of the other models pressured her into joining or bullied her. She even WON yet had the audacity to throw the trophy on the ground in an extremely unsportsmanlike act. The narrative supports her action despite her clearly being in the wrong.
Her having flaws in of itself is not the problem but, the way the show HANDLES her flaws as if they're strengths to be emulated. Yes you could say that Sam herself was wasted potential. Then again she was Butch's intended pet character and the main love interest so of course she had to be Perfect! She should've had a meaningful arc but no. She's still that same obnoxious excuse for a Strong Female Character that the show forces us to sympathise with.
This isn't me saying you should start hating Sam. This is me saying please take the time to read our legitimate complaints before strawmanning us. Sam reinforces the tired Not Like Other Girls Trope, the two biggest victims being WOC, and the show treats this as a good thing. It is not a good thing, seeing interesting female characters esp. Woc be put down to put a very poorly written character on a pedestal.
As a former librarian I'm actually required to remind you that many libraries that subscribe to Libby are opted into a program that lets you subscribe and access magazines for free with no wait
And that this is actually a really fun, low cost way to not only access news and larger cultural magazines, but also to get free patterns for many different crafts that you can screenshot if need be and that lower the financial barriers to entry for trying new things
From my experience working in both academic and public libraries, many libraries are use it or lose it funding-- I have to say this because a lot of patrons feel guilty for how much they use the library and how often they're using it funny enough, but the worst thing you can do for libraries is not try out new features and not use what's already given to you as much as possible.
The numbers that come as a result of your patronage are how most libraries justify their continued existence in times of financial hardship, which sucks but, go check out some magazines on Libby!
