izzy's playlists!
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@geminthereal
gemalawasmisc -> geminthereal
Info:
Please call me Gem.
I use he/they/it, but neopronouns are also great.
Over 21.
I post basically anything that entertains me or I think is worthy of being saved or whatnot.
Blog is minor friendly in that I tag nsfw and don't really reblog it anyway. Basically nothing else gets tagged I lack time and energy for that.
This is a sideblog.
Feel free to say hi :)
Blogs I block, my other blogs, and icon source below the cut.
Also, please do not listen to how people talk about cover letters on this site. Cover letters are important, and in many industries you can be damn sure they'll be read. And no, they're not 'fanfic about working in your office', or just re-stating the resume contents in a fancier guise. If you treat them like that, then of course they're not doing much for you. That makes you sound like a syncophantic windbag, and it's not doing anything else to help.
I was trained in the dark arts of the cover letter by my mother, who is a hiring manager. And her training has paid off: I've been consistently told my cover letters are excellent. Let me pass on the wisdom.
The job of a cover letter is to give a prospective employer strictly more information than is on the resume. This is where you take the resume contents and put them into context. You look at the job requirements (you are looking at the job requirements before applying, right?) and look at your resume and ask the question (in your head) "why would a person think this candidate would be good for this job?" and your cover letter is the answer to that question. If you don't answer that question, the hiring manager is going to have to do it themselves, and you have way more information to work with than they do.
This is especially important if you're moving from one industry to another, because then the relevant connections aren't obvious. It's also very important if you're overqualified, because then you can use the letter to say "I know it looks like this job would be too entry-level for me, but I'm interested to pursue it for reasons x, y, and z". You can also use this space to explain away something that might otherwise be disqualifying, like job-hopping or a long break in employment. The tone to strike here is always matter-of-fact and constrained to topic - don't go into detail about health stuff or personal tragedy, just tell them what they need to hear: that this period of your resume was affected by [bad thing] but that it's now in the past and you're looking forward to the next chapter. Remember, one of the things they're trying to learn is whether you'd be content in this role, or whether you'd be miserable and leave after 2 months, which would force them to do all the work of hiring again. You're trying to establish that you will fit right in and not cause problems. Knowing what drew you to this job in particular (and don't just say 'money', that's true for everyone) helps with that.
And the other mistake? Everyone writes cover letters that are too long. One page is fine. Two is the absolute maximum, and that's if you have a lot of specific things to say. It's a waste of your time and theirs to pad it out with fluff. Of my two most recent successful cover letters (i.e. jobs for which I was interviewed) one was 390 words and the other was 550. That's the length of this post. How long did it take me to write this post? About 15 minutes to write, 5 to proof and edit. That's how long you should be spending on a cover letter, maximum.
The note inside a bullet.
B-17 bomber is riddled with German anti-aircraft fire but miraculously survives. Later they discover the explosive shells were all inert; sabotaged by Nazi slaves working in armament factories.
Inside one empty shell is a written note: it's all we can do for you now.
The most important part of all this is that these small acts of bravery and noncompliance cannot be known as long as the enemy still stands, and might never be known. Just because it doesn’t seem like anyone is doing anything doesn’t mean it’s true. The best malicious compliance or subtle sabotage is the one that’s never detected, but makes ravages nonetheless.
Serafinski Blessed is the Flame An introduction to concentration camp resistance and anarcho-nihilism 2016 Taken from the original book: Run
Philosophy Podcast · Updated weekly · A podcast broadcasting Anarchist texts and audiobooks
"there comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to throw your bodies upon the wheels and upon the gears. Upon the levers. Upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop!"
~Mario Savio
Omg this looks like some sort of Fairytale Horror; like, a town with trees that have missing pets or people etched into them- coming off naturally enough to be dismissed as bark/tree discolouration
The framing of this image is just perfect subtle horror.
Chill it’s a pole
you missed the tree entirely didnt you buddy
HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK
World Heritage Post
”transandrophobia/anti-transmasculinity isn’t real” When i was younger one legitimate thing o had against transitioning (in the future) was that instead of being a women scientist, instead of being progressive and boundary breaking, i would just be a man. What would all the little girls think if i abandoned them, left the harshness of female hood to become a man instead, become not the idol they looked up too?
literally used to get so upset that i would not be a “woman in STEM” and would be taking spots away from women who could be in STEM instead of a man like me. that once my gender changed i was the statistic we were trying to push against. who needs more men like me in STEM?
Not to talk over you but use this as a way to get the conversation outta the tags — it’s younger trans men who needs men like you in stem. When you transition, the world doesn’t just lose a women in stem it also gains a trans man/masc.
@echoiiing said it very well.
So, for everybody that feels that strange shame and pressure of needed to be the Women Scientist, the Women Role Model in the room — you’ll instead be a Trans Masc scientist, a Trans Man Role Model.
Not to mention the fact that the world is always gaining new women every day in the form of trans women. They get to be the Women Scientists and the Women Role Models for women and girls to look up to. It’s not our job to fulfil that role when trans women are doing it so much better than we ever could.
Whenever the world gains a new trans person, future generations of trans people gain an extra bit of hope that they wouldn’t have otherwise had, so never ever feel guilty about transitioning. The world needs you exactly as you are!
[id: a screenshot from a tumblr comment by the user @/echoiiing. It reads "I was worried about this for a while, until I realized I wouldn't be "just another man in STEM". I'd be a trans man in STEM. If I ever make it anywhere, I could be someone for young trans boys to look up to, because they have even less role models than young girls. end ID]
spent forty-five minutes today helping an 87yo woman who does not own a computer or a cell phone try to set up an email account so that she could then set up a second account in order to access benefits. went with protonmail, because they don't require 2fa, but it turns out that while you can still make a protonmail account without authentication you can no longer use it to create OTHER accounts without it, and the benefits page she needed to get to required both an email and a cell phone to create an account anyway. asked if she wanted to try going in person to see if someone there could help her, and she said that she had, and they'd directed her to the website. she tried signing up with her landline, but of course that didn't work because you can't do SMS authentication that way. finally ended up writing up detailed instructions for how to log in and authenticate her account so she can drive to her severely disabled daughter's house forty minutes away because that's the only person she knows and trusts who has both a cell phone and a computer.
anyway i fucking hate mandatory 2fa and i think the people responsible for it should have to spend a year navigating their lives with no cell phone and no internet access beyond the public library pcs. fuck.
i know most people have seen it but i cant emphasize how much this is literally my favorite breath of the wild clip of all time. also i can never fucking find this clip when i need it especially in high definition so here it is
been thinkin about how my ethics professor back in undergrad was like.
look. there’s no such thing as perfect altruism. you’ll always get something out of helping or being kind to others, whether it’s a stronger relationship or returned kindness or just the feeling of having done good. there’s nothing inherently bad about getting something from doing good either, especially since it’s completely unavoidable. people being rewarded for putting love into the world doesn’t make the world a worse place. so just do as much good as you can and don’t worry about being “selfless” while doing it, because being truly selfless is in fact impossible.
and like man did that take the pressure off of Being A Good Person!! you’re allowed to enjoy helping people! you’re allowed to be kind without worrying that you’re maybe secretly just doing it for yourself!! it’s okay if you are doing it for yourself because you’re still being kind to others!!!!!
genuinely wild to me when I go to someone's house and we watch TV or listen to music or something and there are ads. I haven't seen an ad in my home since 2005. what do you mean you haven't set up multiple layers of digital infrastructure to banish corporate messaging to oblivion before it manifests? listen, this is important. this is the 21st century version of carving sigils on the wall to deny entry to demons or wearing bells to ward off the Unseelie. come on give me your router admin password and I'll show you how to cast a protective spell of Get Thee Tae Fuck, Capital
Share the knowledge
Okay, here we go! I'm gonna try and put this in order from least to most technical knowledge required. I'm not responsible if you accidentally create SkyNet etc.
Level 1: browser extensions
This one is basically impossible to get wrong, or at least to get wrong badly enough that it causes any problems.
Get Firefox, or a Firefox fork like Waterfox. If you use a fork, make sure it's one that will let you use add-ons. On a PC, pretty much any Firefox fork will take add-ons, but on mobile devices, many don't. Iceraven is one that does.
Get the add-ons uBlock Origin, YouTube Sponsorblock (if you use YouTube), and FBCleaner (if you use Facebook).
uBlock Origin comes with a built-in list of filters to block ads and trackers, but you can add your own filters to block any specific element of a website you don't like. You know those goddamn floating frames on fandom.com sites that block half the screen? Now you can zap 'em.
Sponsorblock uses crowdsourced timestamps to automatically skip sponsor spots and self-promotion in YouTube videos. Never listen to anyone say "hit like and subscribe" or "Raid Shadow Legends" again.
FBCleaner hides all content from your feed except posts from people, groups, and pages you've actually chosen to follow.
Level 2: leaving enshittified services
The software that's become standard over the years in a lot of fields is steadily selling more of your data, showing you more ads, and pushing you to buy more expensive subscriptions. Time to tell them to get fucked.
Dump Adobe apps for Affinity or Krita. Drop Microsoft for LibreOffice. Change your default search engine from Google to DuckDuckGo or Qwant. Use OpenStreetMaps instead of Google or Apple Maps.
Level 3: network-level DNS fuckery
DNS, or Domain Name Service, is the thing that tells your computer where www.website.com is actually located. By hacking your network's DNS you can force it to tell your devices that ad-hosting domains don't exist at all. Some of the steps on this one can get pretty technical, but because you're doing all the difficult stuff on a dedicated device, you can't really fuck up anything that seriously.
Get yourself a Raspberry Pi (a cheap older one like a model 3B will work just fine for this purpose), and follow a guide like this one to get it set up running AdGuard Home. AdGuard, like uBlock, has built-in filter lists, but you can also add your own if there are specific domains you want to block.
Once it's up and running, you'll need to change the DNS settings on your router to point to your AdGuard service. This is different for every router but will always start with logging into the admin panel with a password printed on a little sticker somewhere on the router.
With that done, every time a device on your home network looks for ads.website.com, it'll get back a message that says "sorry, can't find it", so it won't be able to load any ads.
Level 4: Android-specific DNS fuckery
Because AdGuard runs on your home network, it can't block ads on your phone when you're away from home - and what's worse, your phone will sometimes remember the addresses it got when you were out and about, and ads will get past your AdGuard wall even when you're home.
To avoid this, get AdAway for DNS-based ad-blocking directly on your phone. The easy, but less seamless, way of using AdAway is the "local VPN mode", which doesn't require you to do any mucking about with your phone's operating system.
Level 5: automated media piracy
The best way to stop seeing ads on all your streaming services is to stop using streaming services. There are loads of ways to do this, but the best ones involve setting up what's called an "arr stack" (Google that for setup guides) along with nzbget and a usenet account. Most of the time you'll want to set this stuff up on a dedicated device - an old laptop gathering dust in the closet is a great option, or you can grab something used from a charity shop or a local electronics recycler.
The great thing about usenet is that unlike with torrents, you don't have to do any sharing from your computer, so you're in a lot less legal jeopardy - legally speaking, distributing pirated content is waaayyy more serious than accessing it. I pay about £3 a month for a secure, high-bandwidth usenet service.
Once you start getting your own collection of media on your own computer, use the open-source media library manager Jellyfin to browse and play things from basically any device.
Oh, and don't be a dick. Pirate all you want from big corporations, but please pay independent small-time creators for their work.
Level 6: fucking with Android
Android phones are a lot more locked-down than they used to be, but depending on the device you own you can still do a lot of messing around under the hood. Note that if you get something wrong while doing this, there is always the possibility that it will turn your device into a paperweight.
Before you buy a device, check where it sits on the Bootloader Unlock Wall of Shame. Once you've bought it, check the xda-developer forums for guides on how to unlock it and "root" it (gain admin access) with Magisk.
Once Magisk is installed, you can add modules to do all sorts of cool stuff, including using AdAway in "root mode" which makes it basically invisible.
You can also install YouTube ReVanced, which will do all the ad- and sponsor blocking stuff we took care of in your Windows browser a few paragraphs ago. Be careful: there are a lot of fake sites out there pretending they're associated with the ReVanced project which might be injecting malware into their downloads. This Reddit post has the official instructions and links.
Also, try out the modded version of Facebook from APKmoddone, which will block most of the same shit as the FBcleaner add-on from earlier. There's always a possibility that modified apps like this are doing something dodgy, but I've never had any issues with this one personally.
Level 7: fucking with Windows
This one is scary because it can seriously fuck up your shit if something goes wrong, but some really cool people have actually made it very simple to strip all the bloat, ads, and spyware out of Windows. The tool I use is ReviOS. Start reading at https://www.revi.cc/docs. Basically, you'll need to download a tool called AME Wizard and the ReviOS "playbook" that tells AME what to do. Read the documentation before you do any of this.
Level 8: switching to Linux
I'm not going to pretend this is an option for everyone. Half the software I use on a weekly basis isn't available on Linux. But if you can switch? Do it. These days, Ubuntu - one of the most popular flavours of Linux - is built with people switching from Windows in mind, and a lot of things will be pretty intuitive. It also has great documentation and a huge community you can go to for help if you're confused about stuff.
And that, friends, is a comprehensive approach to banishing the demons of capitalism from your home!
Something I want to add:
You don't even need a pihole for it anymore. You can throw "dns.adguard-dns.com" into your android phone under Network (or Connections) > Private DNS > Private DNS Provider Hostname in your Settings app. You can also set your router up to use it via the IPs:
94.140.14.14
94.140.14.15
Link to to source for that:
Create your ad-blocking DNS server that will protect your personal data, prevent tracking and allow you to control access to specific conten
That will depend on your router, just search "How to set up custom DNS for (router name & model)". You can usually find that info on a sticker on the router itself. The model name is often nonsense like CM1000.
For switching to Linux:
If you're worried about software not working, and the software isn't something with work-related requirements attached, you can usually find alternatives. Alternativeto.net is a good place to start with that.
AlternativeTo lets you find apps and software for Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Android, Android Tablets, Web Apps, Online, Windows Tab
If you're a gamer, protondb.com will let you see how well your specific game runs on Linux. Ranks are from:
Borked - Does Not Work At All, or works so poorly that you cannot play the game at all
Bronze - Sort of works, but with glitches that don't exist on Windows that affect gameplay
Silver - Works, but requires tinkering, and has glitches that don't affect gameplay, or requires heavy tinkering to get running
Gold - Works, requires mild tinkering (usually just selecting another proton version from the drop down)
Platinum - Works out of the box
Native - Is made for Linux
Other common alternatives:
Spotify: I've heard good things about Tidal, but haven't personally used it (I use a cloud storage service and local files for music)
Google drive: Nextcloud. You can find free servers on their website
Google office: OnlyOffice has a desktop/mobile app, and most of the features
Gmail: Free providers aren't common, but disroot is one of them. They also offer quite a few services. Personally I use mailbox.org, but they do cost $36 a year minimum
Google search: Disroot has a searx instance, startpage.com exists, and you'd be surprised at how far you can get by setting your default search engine to Wikipedia. Marginalia's also good, but selective about what they index (mostly indieweb stuff)
I, admittedly, run almost everything through Emacs nowadays, so there may be better alternatives now.
(Directed generally) Also remember that in most cases the problems are Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. If you find a small project that isn't perfect, remember that those five companies are probably worse in every way imaginable. Look for an alternative, but for the love of whatever you hold dear, Google is *not* a better alternative.
HUH?
Most cop thing I've ever read. what the fuck are you talking about. The posts you're looking for might be on this website but we won't show them to you???
I'm sure all my settings are set to "yes show me mature content no don't filter anything" what are you TALKING ABOUT
the posts are ON THE WEBSITE. I can't search dirty words?? am I five??? is this club penguin??? when I get you
What the hell
What is going on
just so you know, if you completely ignore the search feature on the website and just type "tumblr.com/search/term" into the address bar, it bypasses all of this. broken-ass website
Strange haunted photo where Winifred looks like she's a painting
I have placed her in a more fitting setting
For the first time in my tenure on tumblr, it's "THAT'S A PHOTOGRAPH?" and not "THAT'S AN OIL PAINTING?"
I miss when ads were a single click and then they’re gone. Now every ad has a minimum of three phases where you watch a video, exit the still frame of fake gameplay, and then exit the app download. That doesn’t even touch on the ones that forcibly take you to another app after opening a tab in safari without you ever touching the screen.
I hate advertising. I hate that you can’t do anything without companies jumping down your throat with mostly bullshit ads. I hate that billboards exist. I hate that every company unanimously decided to make their ads longer and longer. I hate that ad blockers try to charge you money and there are in app purchases to remove ads. I hate that my attention has become commodified. I hate that there’s nothing I can do about it.
I don't know. I don't get why more people (/rhetorical) aren't, in some way, invested in youth lib. Like, can you listen to what we're saying? Have you seen what's been happening? Why aren't you infuriated?
My mom told me a story today about how, in her last semester of high school, she had 4 study halls, calculus, and PE. She told me she skipped her study halls and just showed up for calculus and PE so she could graduate. She told me on her senior skip day she went to the lake with nearly her entire class.
I'm not saying this is like, incredibly awesome and educationally productive, but she was a teen. And she did teen stuff.
My school doesn't have study halls. Punishments for absences start once you dip below 95% attendence rates. 3 tardies count as an unexcused absence. We got several emails about how senior skip day was not approved and that anyone caught to be participating would get in school suspension. 45 minute lunches are a "privilege". Skipping class is an in school suspension, which are sent along with grades to colleges you apply for. Speaking of which, the majority of my classmates are still spending hours everyday studying, and failing that, doing part-time jobs, clubs, sports, and volunteering -- all in hopes of getting into the college they want.
Everyone is fucking wiped! Barely any of us enjoy school (+or life, to some extent), many of us are actively suicidal because of school. One of us didn't make it to graduation. This is seen as an "us issue", a matter of mindset (don't worry! Today's quote of the day is another variation of "good mindset = good day, bad mindset = bad day"!!) Most places actively bar or discourage teens from being there (hanging out in a mall = loitering, no minors allowed without parent supervision basically everywhere, walking around with no real goal is "suspicious", etc etc). When we stay inside and go on the internet, we are told that we are the problem, we need to stop spending so much time online, and the solution is social media and phone bans. As if excessive use of electronics by younger people isn't a symptom of a much larger issue. As if bans will solve the problem. As if we like spending our teenage years scrolling.
My friends tell me how their mom took their inheritance money and bought a car. How their dad flipped their shit, verbally and physically, when they dyed their hair. I read stories about people getting messages from online friends that say "I think my parents found out I'm queer" and then never hearing from them again. Have you ever read about the troubled teen industry?
And that isn't even, like, the basics!!! That's barely even scratching the surface!!
Aren't you angry? Aren't you? I need more people to be angry, because I'm not allowed to (don't cha know being angry when you're young justifies abuse I mean discipline?).
you know its telling how few people on the internet actually spend time outdoors in general and around actual gay men in particular
because to hear even Tumblr the "gay gender website" talk people only wear harnesses while strapped into a sex swing while being fisted
but the reality is that the harness, both leather and spandex, in gay male world is like stiletto pumps, a bright red lip stick, a short skirt or push up bra.
sure some people are wearing those things because they're about to get laid or hoping to. But lots of people wear them just to feel sexy, confident or powerful. And there's nothing X rated and "shouldn't be seen in public" about any of that.
lots of gay guys wear harnesses to bars or clubs not because its a sex thing, but because its a sexy thing, they feel attractive and confident.
I get that gay men feeling attractive and confident terrifies people, but if you're at Pride and a guy walks past you in jeans and a harness, either shirtless or over his shirt, he didn't violate your civil rights or do a sex thing in front of you, he's wearing a totally appropriate outside that makes him feel confident and powerful.
grow up, deal.
idk man I'm thinking a lot about the discourse being reported in this post and my own post about crushes, which has garnered a lot of responses like this one
and I don't know exactly what to do with this yet but I'm fascinated, in a really upsetting way, by the way some of these people seem to conceptualize romantic and/or sexual attraction as an act of violation that no one should do to people they like and care about. if nothing else it raises some really compelling questions about what they think actually goes on between people who have sex and/or romantic bonds with each other if that's not supposed to be something that happens between friends.
normal stuff happening in the replies
oh my god I'm doing patriarchy now
This just in, "having feelings, regardless of how or whether you act upon them, is an aggressive, patriarchal act." 🙄
Saying this as gently as possible: if you have any of the above reactions to finding out that someone has romantic feelings for you, that's on you, not on them, and your reactions are both evidence of trauma and not something you should encourage in yourself. Please seek help and healing.
friend of mine recommended a video essay that's like 5 hours long about why it's currently a whole Thing for fascists to claim they only eat meat and demonize vegetables etc etc, and it's genuinely quite well researched in many places and contains some fascinating history and has made me feel very weird about my status as an adult who enjoys drinking milk. but I've not finished it and I genuinely don't know if I will because at one point the ol' "you can't say you care about animals and also eat animals" chestnut got dropped by the white vegan essayist and it put such a bad taste in my mouth that I had to leave instantly
like idk man it just feels genuinely parodic to dedicate hours to analyzing how foodways have frequently been used as white supremacist propaganda and then casually toss out an argument that pretty invariably demonizes indigenous hunting practices with 0 regard for traditional knowledge and land stewardship guiding those practices
okay on the suggestion of some folks in the replies I've gone back to finish the video. I don't object to any of the descriptions of animals being mistreated in many current methods of meat production! factory farming is very bad! people should be aware of how their food is produced, and as a meat eater I very much want the animals I eat to be treated humanely and with as much dignity as possible. however. I am also wondering why I was immediately subjected to a direct comparison between animals being killed for food and human women being sexually assaulted.
damn okay went back to the video and they said that people pointing out that vegan arguments frequently veer into racism are the real racists because some Indigenous people are vegans... they fucking got me
necessary disclaimer I guess that 1.) I don't have anything against the practice of veganism and 2.) I don't have anything against these youtubers who I know nothing about save for this video. I think they're thoughtful and passionate and broadly have a lot of interesting things to say but maybe missed the mark with some parts of this essay.
I did watch through the specific refutation that I was advised to check out and I can't say that it really did anything to dispell my initial gripes with the argument that one cannot both care about and eat animals, and the entire section debunking myths about veganism did in fact come across as overly defensive and needlessly adding on to the runtime of a video that's already exceedingly long.
as mentioned in another reblog, I also find the defense of PETA and the claim that its bad reputation comes entirely from shady corporate lobbyists as opposed to their history of racist, misogynistic, and ableist as campaigns.
