Thoughts of a Melon

Life and times of a fruit.

[kittydoggie]

Scammer account list

Just for shits and giggles, I'm going to start keeping track of the scammers names that interact with my art. :D Feel free to add names to the list.

chaoticoathcreator

[directactionforhope]

Don't know who needs to hear this, but:

Consider following political and social justice tumblrs under a different login than the one you use to find cool art / cat pictures / fandom stuff / kink stuff / etc

Or like just in general, if you're getting most of your political news in the same apps where you do most of your fun / sexy shit,

pls give some thought to where and when those streams get crossed, esp if you haven't really thought about it before

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Peeps in extreme temperatures, plain water is NOT the only way to stay hydrated and can in fact be more dangerous if you're sweating a lot and not putting more electrolytes back into your body.

There are a ton of quick and cheap electrolyte drink recipes that you can find online. Tea, coffee, cocount water, milk, milk substitutes, juice, etc are all hydrating despite extremely persistent myths. Many fruits and veggies like cucumbers, watermelon, strawberries, bell peppers, etc have high water content and are a great way to hydrate while also getting vital nutrients. Popsicles are also a good way to stay cool and hydrated and you can buy them or make your own with whatever ingredients you want; there are recipes online, including ones for electrolyte popsicles, but you can also just do basic ones with your choice of fruit juice and whatever you want to add, like chunks of fresh or frozen fruit.

Anyone who is telling you that you can ONLY drink plain water to stay hydrated is incredibly misinformed, even if they have experience with high temperatures.

[ineffectualdemon]

If you're feeling shitty but been drinking plenty of water and have nothing to make an electrolyte drink

1. Eat fruit

2. Eat something with salt.

I had a day during the worst of the heatwave when I was a feeling really ill and I realised I hadn't had anything with sodium for a good while. I ate some crisps (chips) and immediately felt better. Was that the healthiest option? Maybe not. Was it the most accessible at the time? Absolutely

Remember that you need salt

[aetherograph]

My mom was a camp counsellor and they were constantly telling the kids to eat potato chips as well as drink water bc chips are the easiest form of salt. Also gives you a little fat and starch boost. So yeah. Summer is the best time of year to have salty snacks!

[kittydoggie]

Do all the things OP says, but also still drink SOME water in day to day life. Even if you hate it, kidney stones are real and scary and can hurt you. It's about balance. Be aware of 1) your activity level 2) the temperature/humidity and 3) how quickly you need to get rehydrated. Water is good for every day drinking, while electrolyte drinks are for exertion/being outside/hydrating more swiftly. Because of this they are PACKED with sugars, salt, and other substances that are good for that but will over load your kidneys if that's ALL you drink.

Think about what you need in the situations you find yourself in, or will find yourself in. I'm saying this just because this is Tumblr and god love it, it's a place of extremes. "You need some salt and other things to stay hydrated well, just water isn't enough!" will get telephoned into "YOU DON'T HAVE TO DRINK WATER EVER AGAIN SUCK IT WATER FREAKS" and we all fucking know it.

[afusionoffandoms]

Turkey to imprison LGBT advocates, criminalize same-sex ceremonies in new bill: report - Stockholm Center for Freedom

Turkey’s justice ministry is drafting legislation that would imprison people for publicly praising LGBT identity, criminalize same-sex engag

[bisexualantagonist]

EXTRA INFO:

The Bill hasn't passed yet; however it is very likely. Turkey just shut down the social media accounts of LGBT+ organizations, and quietly banned/"made not possible to see" multiple dating apps for LGBT people such as Taimi. These are small steps leading up to this. Just less than a year ago the distribution of Estrogen was made ten times harder and hormone replacement therapy laws upped the transitioning age from 18 to 21. Please speak for us.

[milkypancakess]

yeah uhh. i live in turkey so. fuck

[catsofyore]

Secretary fell asleep at her desk again. Photo from my collection, no date/info.

[parasiteeve]

JERMA DOESN'T EVEN FLINCH..

[ooccoo]

[stinkyhat-deactivated20231213]

[kittydoggie]

why did jerma's brother beat him with a stick, i am scared to google this

[catsofyore]

Group of well dressed people admiring a cat. Photo from my collection, no date/info.

[scavengedluxury]

Creepy shoe shop sign, Birkirkara. Malta, October 2015.

[catsofyore]

❤️ Photo from my collection, not date/info.

[red-pencil]

Gossip

[pmamtraveller]

A Cat on the Battery (Radiator), 2017 -. Maria Chepeleva

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

Children are born into a state of implicit debt.

Good parents forgive this debt. Bad parents expect it to be repaid, one way or another. The accepted currencies are varied and cryptic and might be mostly innocuous or they might be horrifically criminal.

Many families don’t realize that there is a debt until the child defaults on it somehow. That could be for any reason—the child simply fails to deliver on the parental investment by not adequately being the child they paid for.

“Inspiration porn” is a disability term, but I’m using it here because it’s appropriately provocative, and because the state of being a child is functionally a disability. A child who fails to be life-affirming and inspirational and to perform heartwarming innocence is breaking a contract, and adults are no longer obligated to uphold their own end and nurture the child. A child is a resource from which inspiration porn can be mined, or it is a kind of brood parasite.

[hassaku-839]

[kittydoggie]

I'm so tired of this kind of shit being on every. fucking. website. I am looking at a tutorial for how to calibrate my cutting machine properly, my guy, I don't think the lying machine or slave wage desk jockey will really be more helpful than reading the page that I already searched up and navigated to on my own power. It's bad enough they have these everywhere, some sites will literally just interrupt what you're browsing to pop up a "help" desk. It's worse than Clippit. Yes his name is actually Clippit, not Clippy. You've Mandella'd that, stop gaslighting yourself.

[thefugitivesaint]

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), poem 85 from “The Gardener”, 1914 Translated by the author from the original Bengali. New York: The Macmillan Company.

[grammarpedant]

It is an hundred years hence now. Go open your doors.

[hope-for-the-planet]

70% Drop in Levels of Forever Chemicals Observed in Seabird Eggs Tracks Regulatory Success

These pescatarian birds are directly exposed to PFAS contamination due to the island's position near the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.

While continued vigilance a regulation is needed, this data indicates that regulations are working to reduce PFAS concentrations in marine ecosystems.

[sattarehi]

Yes!!!! I did a review of literature on PFASs in human drinking water about half a year ago, and there is a lot of really good progress! Please celebrate this, please don't let this solution be forgotten (at least so quickly) as the ozone layer or acid rain.

We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!

Environmental problems CAN BE SOLVED.

[tzikeh]

Maryland to Become First US State to Ban Surveillance Pricing That Charges More After Mining Personal Data

Maryland will become the first US state to ban surveillance pricing in retail stores, after passing Protection from Predatory Pricing Act.

Jesus fucking christ that this exists in the first place

[boyslit]

I WAS FUCKING WONDERING WHAT THOSE DIGITAL PRICE TAGS WERE ABOUT SUDDENLY i had hoped they were so the workers didn't have to finagle those little papers into the slider part anymore 😭

[eclipticasolaris]

Hi, yes, that is the OFFICIAL excuse made to me by the guy replacing the paper tags with digital ones at my local Walmart, but the end goal is to remove the numbers off the shelf entirely, replacing them with QR codes that you have to scan with the app…. Which requires your login information….. and also stores your card information so even if you didn’t use your Walmart account at the physical checkout, if you used a card they recognize, they assign that purchase to your Walmart account purchase history.

I explained very clearly to the manager my issue with the meat section not having the price tags listed, and they claimed it was only going to be for the meat, since meat is by weight, and the price of each item is printed on the packs of each item.

Sure. That’s how they get their foot in the door. Fast forward not even two weeks, and here we are:

Bar codes. No prices, no item descriptions. No price stickers on the individual items. Heck, not even the name of the item that is SUPPOSED to be there.

No. The only way to see the price is to scan it on your phone app, which is also recording what you looked at recently, as a way of gauging what you might be looking for in the future.

So here’s what we’re gonna do gang:

Every time you go into a store that has implemented these price-less tags:

Take 1-3 items up to the cash register. Ask the cashier for the price, or hit the price check item on the self checkout, which will likely call over the attendant.

Express that you didn’t actually want it, you just couldn’t see on the shelf how much it was.

POLITELY, AND WITH A THANK YOU FOR THE PRICE CONFIRMATION, Give the items to the cashier or attendant to put back.

When they inevitably try to push the app, politely decline. If pressed for why not, say you don’t want to have to carry your phone in-hand the whole time you are shopping in order to see how much things cost. (Not having cell service or data to use the app is NOT a valid excuse, as stores already often have complimentary WiFi AND more stores will provide WiFi rather than give up on this push for surveillance pricing)

If it’s a shelf-stable item, the cashier will have to set it aside, taking up room in their limited operating space, and eventually pass it off to someone to put in a holding area to put back later. If it’s a fridge/freezer item, it might have to get tossed due to food product sale regulations.

In either case, you are making it a pain in the ass for them to have these digital bar codes. Tie up the checkouts. Give the employees more busywork that the company has to pay them to do. Hurt their bottom line having to toss the pint of ice cream you carried around in your cart for 20 minutes before giving it back to the cashier.

Yes, call your reps. Yes, push for more legislation like this in more places. But also take an extra minute out of your shopping trip to MAKE IT HURT for companies to pull this shit.

[antisocialxconstruct]

I've seen some people in the notes express (very fair) concern that this is only going to inconvenience already under-paid laborers, and not have any impact on corporate. While I can't speak for every company or every store, I do work in a grocery store and I can tell you this is precisely the kind of thing that would have an impact, especially if people are doing it en masse. Stores absolutely track their shrink numbers, and they do draw distinctions between what gets stolen, damaged, or wasted for other reasons. If people are making it clear that the reason they're bringing things to the cashier is that the prices are not adequately represented on the displays, and rather than improving business it's wasting product, slowing down transactions, and causing confusion and mistrust in customers, that is a language that shareholders speak.

[dovewithscales]

I worked in retail for years. If this had happened while I was working retail, I would have been delighted and felt great solidarity with anyone who was wasting my employer's time and money and giving me busy work as an act of protest. In point of fact every moment the employee spends carting items back to the shelves is a moment not spent standing at a register.

[kittydoggie]



MAKE IT MANAGEMENT'S PROBLEM.

Probably won't be a popular opinion here, but my retail experience is absolutely the opposite of any of the ones above me. Any time there was something that was actively degrading the customer experience and making things slower/harder to do, clerks were just expected to take the abuse, and maintain the company line with polite empathy. We weren't supposed to ever speak of company policy in a negative way, even if we agreed with what the customer was saying.

They do not care about clerks. They are disposable. I have had people threaten me over fucking coupon policies, and been given a shrug by management. Even if you tell clerks why you're not wanting to buy something, it is very unlikely that they'll be listened to if they pass it on. Poorly performing stores will be blamed on them, because that's what always happens. So make it management's problem directly. If there's a survey with a receipt, do the survey, mention explicitly why you aren't buying from them, and mention that it has nothing to do with their employees.

If there's a time to Karen out on a manager, this is the time. In fact, Karen, this is your moment. Get out there. Just spare the little guys.