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Today's Document
One Nice Bug Per Day
Cosimo Galluzzi
d e v o n
KIROKAZE
sheepfilms
DEAR READER
dirt enthusiast
Peter Solarz
art blog(derogatory)
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
tannertan36
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
izzy's playlists!
Love Begins
Show & Tell
almost home
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
seen from Colombia
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@idlestudy
free Notion templates (dashboards & more)
hi! I have come to love making notion templates as a hobby, especially themed dashboards. you can check them all out here, and feel free to request other themes with an ask! if you use one of these and like it, please let me know! I'd love to get feedback on what is useful or not in the dashboards especially so I can add new details or remove unnecessary parts. enjoy!
Things you can do as a security guard instead of acting like a dickhead: a vent post disguised as advice
Offer alternatives: IE, “Sorry, nobody’s allowed to hang out over there, but we have seats over here you’re welcome to use”. I recommend getting familiar with local parks, public seating, free food programs, outreach, mobile aid, etc., just in case those are needed.
Be polite: IE, “Excuse me, sir”, “I beg your pardon, miss”. This should go without saying but everyone deserves dignity.
Avoid phrasing requests as orders: IE, “Don’t stand in front of that” VS “Excuse me, could you move a bit to the side?”. This works best with an explanation, like, “There’s a sign behind you”, or, “you might get clipped by someone”. This helps communicate that you are asking for a reason, not just throwing your weight around. If you don’t have a reason, rethink whether or not you need to be doing anything.
Avoid directing blame or fault. Don’t say, “The owner says you gotta go” when you could say, “I’m not supposed to let people be here for X period” or “do X thing”. Again, try to have alternatives ready so people can use other resources or do something else instead of just abruptly changing plans.
Come from a place of compassion whenever you can. People are gonna tell you to get rid of the crazy screaming guy. They say that because they’re frightened and don’t know what to do. Your best approach is, “Hello sir”, followed by, “How are you today?”, “how’s it going?”, “are you doing alright?”, etc., depending on what the person is ACTUALLY doing / saying when you get there. You can offer help from there if needed, or leave them alone if they’re not in danger or a risk to anyone.
Remember you’re not a cop. This can mean whatever you need it to mean. For me personally, that means that with incredibly rare exception (like trying to sell to kids, contaminating other’s food or drink) I won’t report you for drugs. If I find you doing drugs on my site I’ll tell you a different place where you can do them instead and ask you to do them there. I have interrupted drug deals to ask the client and the salesman to both kindly move 15 feet to the left, I’m not kidding, I do not care.
Know who you can throw under the bus. Sometimes you gotta enforce rules and be the bad guy and if that’s the fault of some dipshit in a suit 200 miles away, you can say that. Sorry man, I can’t let you park your car on the lawn. I know you’re not hurting anyone and frankly I think lawn culture is stupid but there’s other parking stalls and if my boss sees you I’ll get a write-up for not doing my job. Shit sucks sometimes but if it wasn’t me telling you it’d be the new guy, and between you and me he’s an idiot and he’ll probably just report you to bylaw.
Don’t just act like you’re their friend, genuinely try to be a good friend. If you know that someone is doing something that will only result in a bystander phoning police, don’t let them go down like that. Let them know, “hey man, you seem like you’re having a shit time and I get it, I’ll do what I can, but we gotta have this conversation somewhere else ‘cause we’re freaking out the old ladies.”
Swallow your tongue. You can’t fix the world. People are gonna bitch at you about communists and 5G and gangster rap ruining the neighbourhood, that’s just part of the deal. Nod along, remain neutral, shut down any hate speech, redirect if you can, and keep a limit in mind where you’ll have to shut things down.
Accept that sometimes there are no solutions. Yes, that angry guy who blasts music will be back tomorrow. That homeless woman who asks you to help her find her dog that she hasn’t had in 30 years will ask again, and yes, you’re still going to take a description and promise to keep an eye out. That kid who smokes crack behind the building has been clean for a few weeks and still stops by to say hi, and you hope he’ll get his life together and be happy, but he also might relapse and OD before he hits 25. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can, even if nothing is guaranteed.
Be kind to teenagers. Being a kid is hard, and everyone’s on their ass all the damn time for everything.
Remember that the vast majority of bad people aren’t bad, just unhappy. The guy who keeps showing up drunk and puking on the carpet is unhappy. The lady who bitches about the service every single time and keeps coming back anyway is unhappy. The guy who leaves trash everywhere is probably unhappy. If they were happy, maybe they’d do better, but they’re not, and that’s kinda sad. You don’t have to let them get away with their shit, but they probably aren’t actually a worthless human being either.
It doesn’t matter if 12 is true or not. You need to believe it or you will become a harsh and bitter person. Look for evidence that people are not terrible and invent it if you have to
Don’t let yourself become a bastard
These are great for teachers too, and the balance between #4 and #7 is something I’m still learning. To me it means avoiding kvetching about your coworkers in front of kids (“yeah, your principal sucks”) but also being honest about who is really the originator of the demand (“the county school board paid for this test because they thought it would help you, so we’re going to at least try it”)
stop. analyse that text through the lens of its author's intentions and original historical context. okay now take the author out back and kill them dead and analyse that text as though it were published by your mutual yesterday and is in direct conversation the contemporary discourse that's most relevant to your life. okay now pick your favorite angle of interpretation and come up with the strongest possible argument against it. now imagine that the text is your best friend and that it means you well and that you naturally give it every benefit of the doubt because you're on its side and you want the best for it. now imagine that the text wants you dead and it'll eat you if you don't eat it first. now pretend that you found this text locked away in a cave with no evidence of when or where it came from and you have to divine its meaning solely through its internal coherence and nothing else. okay now address the elephant in the room aspect of the text you've been ignoring because you find it boring or confusing or uncomfortable and become the number one expert on it. now spend forty minutes assigning all the characters dnd classes with at least three sentences of reasoning each. okay now do the cha cha slide.
There's hope.
My co-teacher came up with an idea. She said to me: “I’m going to project a Shakespearean sonnet on the board that you have never seen before. They are going to watch you struggle through it, and they are going to see what it takes to authentically annotate something to attempt to understand it”. This was a good idea because it targeted a pitfall of my teaching: that I already know the answer— a predetermined answer I want my students to come to. Therefore, when I ask the class a question, they are aware that there is an answer in my head I want them to arrive at. This method can stifle students’ voice. So, I stood at the front of the classroom that day, feeling exposed, sight-reading Shakespearean sonnets. With most of the sonnets, I, with the help of the class, could only get to about 75% understanding and accuracy at best. But my confusion — my apparent struggle and frustration in understanding each new sonnet— was key for my students. They felt free to posit their interpretations and even to disagree with me. In each session, a student shared a thought or possibility that not only I had failed to see but was also ultimately accurate. One student couldn’t wipe the smile off her face when she figured out a metaphor that stumped both me and my co-teacher. “This was fun”, she and her classmate said to each other when the bell rang.
Adding @leporellian’s tags because—yeah, agreed, the hierarchy seems to have been the problem here.
I agree too - The author gets close here:
But if I was a student who constantly had teachers jumping through hoops to make learning “fun” or “relatable”, I would become exhausted. The push would have the opposite effect, especially because it would be coming from a teacher.
But ultimately falls back on being anti-technology. Whereas I think these tags identify the hidden point better - and when teachers are constantly trying to make learning “fun” by gamifying it and trying to “teach to their level,” they’re still operating within a hierarchy, and the students can feel it. The exhaustion comes from the soul-crushing insult of constantly being seen as less-than. The activity described here is powerful not because it is old fashioned, but because it demonstrates the collaborative knowledge making which constitutes real learning.
It’s testing season right now in the US, the most egregiously dehumanizing period of a student’s academic career. This article is a good reminder to me to try and incorporate more opportunities that place my students and I at the same level - reminding myself to forever remember Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed:
“Respect for the autonomy and dignity of every person is an ethical imperative and not a favor that we can bestow on others or withhold.”
iced matcha with cream and sugar
My Weekend as a 28-year-old in Chicago Illinois
Why does this have its own wikipedia page.
not only does it have a wikipedia page, but they actually discussed deleting it and elected to keep it because they agreed it was sufficiently notable to merit an article.
Working on the Pigeon Mail Club today 🌻
There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?
I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!
Gonna throw Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert in the ring here! You'll never see the modern world the same way again.
A Short History Of The World According To Sheep by Sally Coulthard blew my mind. So many things are tied to wool and sheep and weaving and so many words and phrases are tied to wool, people have no idea.
Example words which come from textiles/weaving, if not specifically wool (go look them up!): subtle, shoddy, tabby, Brazil, rocket, twit, warped, going batty, on tenterhooks, text...
I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.
Sweetness and Power is this but for the topic of sugar
The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come
Also: Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. One of my favourite books.
DO I HAVE A SERIES FOR YOU. University of California Press has a gift for you and it is a 80+ book series on food studies. There are even some that are open access (legally free), but the rest are in libraries.
I also highly recommend Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. It’s about the impact refrigeration has had/is having on food preservation and culture, globally. It was one of my favorite books of this last year.
Also, The Rice Theory of Culture https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=orpc By Thomas Talhelm
Journal Ecosystem Tour | Journals I'm taking into 2026
I'm pretty new to the whole journaling ecosystem thing but I am desperately trying to organise myself so I figured I'd share what I'm carrying into 2026, what I use and why.
Catch all/ Daily Carry | Traveler's Notebook
Daily planner - undated weekly planner insert
Commonplace book - dotted insert
Note book - plain insert
This is basically everything I need on a daily basis. I don’t like digital calendars and I’m trying to get better at organising my thought (hence the commonplace and work book).
Private Journal/Brain Dump | Paperchase Stone paper notebook
This is where all my thoughts go that no one else is allowed to see. I am not good at daily journaling but I am trying to be better, so currently this is used only when I feel I need to get somethign off my chest. It has a few bits of creative writing but is mostly a messy place to put my thoughts.
Reading Journal | Unknown
My parents bought me this book back from Italy as I love leatherbound books. I have a little template I draw onto each page for me to fill in. I don't read too much (I am a mood reader) so those yearly ones never worked for me, this ongoing record is much more my style.
Cosplay Journal | Filofax refillable notebook
Just a place where I jot down notes on all my cosplays, old and ongoing, and somewhere I can keep measurements, track costs and store swatches for future reference.
Random Notes and lists | Moleskin Cahier
For times I don't have my TN on me, I always have this tucked in my back pocket ready for me to make a note or store any important bits of paper. This was the start of me getting into different journals and has been so useful to have on me at all times. This year I used it as a catch all but next year I I'll keep it just for quick notes for when I don't have my TN.
Adventure Journal | Lucas and Ruth DIY Journal Kit
I don't travel but love the idea of a travel journal so this is my version. I am essentially romanticising my mundanity but I create pages based on family hoidays, theatre trips or even picnics with friends. Also I made the book myself which is kinda cool!
Bilbo Baggins Cosplay Workbook | V&A William Morris notebook
I am working on a long term cosplay project of Bilbo Baggin's from The Hobbit movies so this book has all of my notes, real time workings out, calculations etc. I keep my patchwork pattern pieces from his dressing gown in there too. I intend to compete with this costume so having this will help me make my build book.
If anyone wants to see any journal tours, let me know!
class notebook post got a lot of questions so here are some answers!! and also here is the assignment sheet that i used (though i also dedicated a chunk of discussion time at the beginning of term to talking about notetaking strategies, etc.).
the notebooks are their own! i distributed them in august and collected & surveilled them exactly once, this past monday, to count their entries and make sure they were actually mostly about our class content so i could assign them a complete/incomplete grade. otherwise, they either brought them to class or didn't, used them at home or didn't--i didn't police.
re: accommodations--i told students at the beginning of term that if they felt very strongly that a digital notebook would be more successful for them, they could use one. i had one student (out of 28) who did request that, and she used her ipad and submitted a notebook file instead of an object. no issue at all. i also make all my powerpoints available the day we meet, so students can use them to fill in whatever they missed or play catch-up if they were absent. i'm very transparent about accommodations at the beginning of term and i don't require them to go through university disability services. if there's an adjustment that they think will improve their experience in the class, i'm all for it.
re: getting them to actually use the notebooks: the no-screens rule did at least 75% of this for me. they wrote in the notebooks because other than listen and contribute to discussion, they didn't have anything else to do for the 50 minutes we met. the notebook was the only answer to a blank desk. i also incentivized it by making all of our (pop) reading quizzes and the final exam open-book; the better their notes, the more help they have on those assessments. a good handful of students ended up with two volumes--they ran out of pages right before our third and final unit and i had to bring in the extras so they could keep going.
for next time:
i'd like to build in some class activities that make use of the notebook! this semester it was like, we were having class and the notebook was also there. next time, i'd like to be a bit more intentional in designing some ways for them to make use of it beyond just documenting information or planning assignments.
i want to try being screen-free as well. this feels so impossible but a good friend tried teaching analog this semester and she said it was unbelievably freeing and both she and her students loved it. those are my emotional support powerpoints etc and i have a lot of questions (particularly in a class like the british lit survey, which i teach with a lot of historical context that i feel like i need powerpoints for??? apparently this is untrue) but i'm tantalized by the possibilities!!
in-class cover deco time. i think it's good for the youth to do some crafts. use some glue. collage. and then on a pedagogical level, the students who really personalized their notebooks admitted that it made them feel more attached to the object. <3 i could let them just free-range amidst my craft supplies or i could do something a little more directed around manuscript aesthetics, early print technology, etc.
maaaaybe a mid-semester check, just to add a tiny bit of accountability for ongoing engagement. from what i saw in my end-of-semester check, that actually was not an issue for this batch of students, but i don't think it would hurt.
This sounds great - thanks so much for elaborating. It sounds like the screen free element was critical to this project’s success, which likely explains why I’ve been struggling with it in my classroom. I allow a decent amount of digital work since their course credit exam is digital (which I have no control over). It makes me curious though if I could at least set aside some regular and deliberate screen free time each class rather than just doing that randomly as it occurs. Thanks for the thoughts to chew on!
hello follow-up on this august post about using in-class notebooks!
rave reviews, you guys. astounding. i added a question about whether going tech-free was a help or a hindrance to my usual anonymous exit survey. a bunch of the responses were like, "best thing ever. wish all my classes did this." and the rest were like, "unfortunately that did slap and it did help me focus. cannot lie and say it didn't" lmao.
when i did my quick checks for credit earlier this week, i was surprised by how satisfying it was to see a physical representation of how much material we covered, and how interesting it was to see which parts of it they vibed with. also horrifying to discover that many of them had sprinkled in direct quotes from me ("first name: ole. last name: worm. ole worm, that's his name."). hooray, they're listening, but also oh no, they're listening.
when i mentioned my sense of satisfaction in class, they said they felt the same!! that it felt special to have a physical object that proved how much they read and thought over the semester. so i will absolutely be keeping these and probably implementing them in other classes :-)
some survey responses:
I feel like I've retained things better! I loved it
It helped me pay attention and I definitely engaged more in discussion than I usually do in my english classes
It helped me pay more attention to the lectures. Using the notebook instead of my ipad left little room for something to take my attention away from what we were talking about.
I think it did force me to pay more attention, especially with writing notes. On a laptop it is easy to get distracted but I stayed locked in with the actual notebook.
I think it gave me a better chance to engage without distractions, and a more palpable assignment to accomplish
It was beneficial because I was forced to concentrate on physical note-taking. Generally, it made my reading and note-taking more focused; I was less distracted than I would've been with a screen.
Could you share more about how you encouraged students to use these? Could they take them home with them? When you say “quick checks for credit,” what do you mean? I teach college level lit & composition in a high school and have tried class notebooks without much success in the past, but this sounds like what I was dreaming it would be! Thanks in advance!
one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become
I think a great way to improve communication with kids (and adults) is to make every yes or no question a this or that question.
I started doing it when after brain surgery my husband had trouble forming responses to questions for a while, and realized that the habit was helping my students engage more truthfully with me.
Some examples:
Yes/No: “Did you clean up your room like I told you?”
This/That: “Did you clean up already, or do you still need to do that?”
Yes/No: “Are you going to sit quietly?”
This/That: “Are you ready to sit and do our quiet activity, or do you need some time by yourself first?”
Yes/No: “Are you doing anything fun for your birthday?”
This/That: “Are you having a party on your birthday, or are you going to relax?”
I think many children (and adults!) are averse to telling adults “No,” especially when a command is implied. (“Did you clean your room?” “Are you going to sit quietly?” Hmmm if I say ‘no’ I will be in trouble with the adult.) So they are actually pretty likely to just lie and say what they think you want to hear.
Presenting a this or that question provides an alternative to lying, a ‘no, but’ scenario where they are presented with the reasonable consequences of a No (“if you’re not ready to sit quietly, you cannot do our quiet activity with us yet.”)
I find it useful professionally with adults too - "Did you have a chance to finish that project, or is it more of a next-week item?" When done sincerely (rather than passive-aggressively), it gets over rough ground lightly: it gives the other person a solution you clearly already find acceptable, so they don't have to flail around trying to defend/excuse themselves, they can just take the solution and everyone can move on.
I love this strategy! As above, the tone matters. Regardless, this also helps provide a workaround to the fact that saying “No” is a very combative stance to take in most English dialects. When one person asks a yes/no question, they align themselves with the “yes” option, whether they mean to or not. Therefore, by answering “no,” the other person distances themselves from the other speaker, something that usually comes across as aggressive or defensive. By giving a this/that question, the speaker stays relatively equally aligned with both potential responses, allowing the person responding to also stay more similarly aligned. Especially for people with affiliative speaking patterns (often women), this is very important, so using this strategy reduces tension (and also reduces the likelihood that someone will lie to avoid this sense of conflict).
For more on stance taking in sociolinguistics as it’s referred to here, see Du Bois 2008 “The Stance Triangle”
In a recent poll, American think that:
21% of the US is transgender (the actual number is between 0.5% and 1.6%)
30% are gay or lesbian (3%) and an additional 30% are bisexual (4%), meaning the average American thinks that only around 19% of them are cisgender heterosexuals. The actual number of cisgender heterosexuals is around 90% of the population.
30% Muslim (1%) and 30% Jewish (2%), however contradictory to this they also think 58% are Christian, equaling 118% of Americans are of the abrahamic religions to the average American or some people are both Jewish or Muslim and Christian.
33% atheist (3%), meaning the abrahamic religions+ atheism is 141% of the US population.
41% black (12%), 27% (1%) native American, 29% asian (6%), and 39% Hispanic (17%), but also 59% white (64% actual)
30% live in NYC (3%), 30% live in Texas (9%), and 32% live in California (12%), meaning only 8% live in the rest of the country (actual 76%).
And lastly the average American believe only 62% of us have a high school education, actual number is 89%.
People vastly overestimate the general knowledge of the average American, let alone political knowledge and critical thinking skills. We live in the consequences of the children left behind.
My recent layouts in my hobonichi cousin and weeks
Bullet Journal October 2025 - Theme: Cult of the Lamb (Part I)
-- Ted Chiang, from "Why A.I. Isn't Going to Make Art"
I'm so glad they got Ted Chiang -- a wonderful writer of science fiction and thinker about technology, in my opinion -- to write this essay. My favorite line was this:
Generative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium.
