Minerva Max @minervamax-blog - Tumblr Blog

Brass nails and why I have them.

Ever since last night I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my brass fingernails. First of all. NO, they are not prosthesis. i have them for a specific reason.

Here’s what they look like:

another view

HERE’s is the reason:

I bite my nails all the time. constantly, idly, without thinking.

If you’re like me, and love giving back scratches, then having no nails is a problem:

Here’s how chose to fix this problem:

Shoot bullet, collect casing.

cut bullet.

The bullets have a taper inside. we will want the broader side of the taper to be outward on our nails, and the thinner side against the rear of the nail so there is no jutting up of material when they are glued on. Here’s what that taper looks like, one cylinder is flipped over to show how thick it is at the base:

clip, bend, and trim into a nail shape:

sand for a fine (BUT NOT CUTTING SHARP) edge on the front and smooth edges.

Glue with Krazy glue, it’s the best.

it’ll dry quick. NOW TRY BACK SCRATCHES. LOOK AT THIS DIFFERENCE.

Amazing. the nails will stay on for about a week at a time before working themselves loose, when that happens just scrape the glue off and reapply.

Unless you happen to have reached into the closet and snagged it on your shelves and broke the nail off on your pinky cuz holy god that hurt. reapply anyways.

Also these work as screwdrivers, knives and various other multi-tools at the tip of your finger, so that’s pretty rad. I don’t know how odd i should feel about having done this, but i must say; it’s handy as hell and really fun to have nails again.

OH, also you can shine them with “brasso” or something but screw that, I’ve tried that and they get mirror bright and really annoyingly shiny. not my thing.

cannibality-deactivated20250227

excellent

spacedyke

this is some steampunk shit and i love it

skaletal-deactivated20190721

Holy shit, this is literally the coolest thing I’ve read all day.

thetransintransgenic

“Here’s how I chose to fix this problem:

shoot bullets, collect casing”

tendie-defender

I would have totally rocked these back when I had a goth phase.

followthebluebell

Pre-T, I could mimic my cats’ meows perfectly.

Post-T, my voice dropped approximately a fuck-ton (metric) and I can no longer do that. Lil'y has responded by making her own meows as gravely as possible, so I can meow at her again.

So if there are any other guys or non-binaries out there who are worried that their pets won’t recognize them after they start hormone-therapy or something similar, don’t worry. Your pets will love you. They already know who you are.

ivy-michaels

I am dead of the cute

ithurts-to-become

IM DEAD THIS IS SO CUTE

obesitysherpa

Never has a meme so accurately depicted my career as a marketer. Seriously, don’t go into marketing. The people you work for just suck the life out of you

#ugh this is totally true #so ready to get out of marketing

slimegargoyle

I get pregnant, throw a “gender reveal” party, cut open the cake to reveal a landslide of green m&ms. “what does green mean??” my relatives ask, scandalized. in their confusion, they fail to notice that the doors have been barred. they are now my captive audience. “settle in, folks,” I say, “it’s time for gender theory 101. I have slides.”

#my brother and his wife are planning a gender reveal party #and i'm boycotting

worfisproblematic-deactivated20

When English isn’t your first language, reading fanfics in your first language (if there are even any) becomes so much more embarrassing???? And sometimes I wonder why native English speakers don’t get that feeling when they are reading in their native language???

nianeyna

scrolling through the comments on this people with at least three separate native languages have chimed in to agree that English is the porn language. This… is amazing. I never knew.

audre-w

oh oui. tu m’étonnes.

manicpixiedreamgoalie

There is actually an interesting cultural/linguistic theory of explanation for this! I’m not a linguistics expert, just a person who likes learning languages, so my explanation will probably be a bit muddled, but I hope people find it interesting anyhow. You can read a relevant paper here; the authors of the paper call this phenomenon (or a phenomenon that’s very similar to it, at least) “emotion-related language choice theory,” but I don’t know if there’s a widely accepted term for it yet, despite the fact that people have been studying it for– I think close to 20 years? Quite a while, anyhow.

So basically, the cultural “naughtiness” of swear words/taboo words in your first language is something that’s very deeply ingrained– you might not hear these words at all in your early years, and if you do hear them there’s a good chance that there was some shame/reproach/anger involved if someone slipped and used them around you, or if your peers whispered them to each other on the playground to show how cool and grown-up they were. Also, people are generally very thoroughly versed in the complex nuances of how and when to use swearwords in their first language, and they fully understand the cultural weight of using these words to convey intense emotions.

When we’re reading, speaking, or writing in a non-primary language, however, we don’t bring all of that cultural baggage with us. For years linguists assumed assumed that it was easier to talk about highly emotional topics in one’s native language, because people generally feel more comfortable speaking the language(s) they’ve grown up with. A newer theory, however, posits that sometimes it’s actually easier to discuss these very taboo topics in a second or non-primary language, because we don’t have that culturally loaded sense of shame and emotional intensity weighing us down. Reading, for instance, smutty fanfic in a second language allows us to have a degree of removal from the topic at hand, which can be very liberating, because we get all the fun and excitement of reading smut with a great deal less socio-cultural nonsense.

(There’s another at least tangentially relevant thing here that I know even less about, which is a recently-studied mechanism wherein our brains basically refuse to fully translate non-primary language words with negative connotations all the way back to our native language, which lets us maintain a greater degree of distance from the negative thing, but I’ve been rambling for long enough, so I’m just gonna link the paper, and if people want to hear more about it I’d be happy to expound: link).

madmaudlingoes

I am a linguist and I approve this addition. There’s something about swearing in the first language that actually bypasses the higher brain functions entirely; you can take someone with global aphasia (complete inability to speak) due to a traumatic brain injury, and electrically stimulate that person’s amygdala (part of the limbic system that regulates emotion) and there’s a very good chance they will swear. But, unless you’re exposed to multiple language from a young age, there’s a clear structural difference in how we process and store L1 vs. L+. No language but your first gets that built into the architecture of your brain, and the swearing just doesn’t work as well.

#linguistics #fanfic #fanfiction #fandom

finofilipino

wut

such majesty

where r they goin

I never enjoyed a pictures series more

nerdfishgirl

@galyamova-aigerim

xparrot

The interval between the start and the end of “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” is 3 minutes and 30 seconds, and the International Space Station is moving is 7.66 km/s.

This means that if an astronaut on the ISS listens to “I’m Gonna Be”, in the time between the first beat of the song and the final lines …

… they will have traveled just about exactly 1,000 miles.

someauthorgirl

To be alive, now, in this age.

#always reblog

copperbadge

Greetings from a nervous first time baker who has been toying with the idea of making her first loaf of bread from scratch for a while now but is overwhelmed by the number of recipes available. Any recommendations for a good first bread? I'm pretty good at other forms of cooking but I've yet to attempt bread so I'm not scared of a complicated recipe, I just have no idea if what I'm reading will result in anything tasty.

Bread is actually way more forgiving than almost any other kind of baked good. I don’t even measure ingredients anymore, I just eyeball everything. You can’t usually do that in baking.

A good starter recipe is the famous New York Times no-knead bread, which is how a lot of people learn. It’s very straightforward and fairly reliable, and it’s a good introduction to working with dough (you don’t really need to bake it in a cast iron dutch oven – it’ll bake just fine in a loaf pan, it just gets crispier in the dutch oven). When you’re ready to try kneading, if you’re not allergic to dairy or eggs I actually recommend my yogurt-egg bread – it’s a very high-protein bread which means that it’s super durable and it can survive a lot of screwing-up.

There is no single hard and fast rule for bread – even stuff like keeping the yeast warm by using warm water and room-temperature ingredients only applies most of the time, not all of the time. While you want to bloom your yeast in warm water, you will get a more flavorful bread if it rises very slowly, and the colder the environment, the slower the dough will rise. When I want a fast rise I put my bread near my gas fireplace; when I want a slow rise I put it near the window.

Once you feel comfortable branching out, you can do stuff like adding herbs to the oil that you use to oil the bowl when the bread does its first rise (rosemary is good but a little goes a long way). Or try making a simple foccacia or challah and then adjust the flavors to your taste. Or try kneading stuff into the dough –dried berries or chopped dried fruits are nice, and so are cheddar and chives.

Most breads are relatively cheap to make. There’s not a lot of expensive ingredients. Just get yourself some good bread flour (King Arthur brand is a favorite here in the US) and a jar of yeast, and remember that yeast is a living creature, and life is unpredictable. Don’t feel down if you fail now and again – I still have a dud loaf once in a while. Good luck and happy baking!

minervamax-blog

Now I want a poster that says "remember that yeast is a living creature, and life is unpredictable"

#copperbadge #bread #baking #life advice

diaphanee

Icelanders clearly have the best lullabies to put babies to sleep

cityelf

Concept: an immortal who doesn’t shy away from photos or paintings. Draws self portraits on cave walls. Photobombs everything with a pout and a suave pose. Commissions numerous portraits of themself as a literary Romantic before faking their death. Tries to be at least slightly famous every time they have a new identity. Creates a conspiracy blog linking all their past photos together before mysteriously disappearing in mysterious circumstances. Mysteriously. Usually only disappears for 10 to 20 years after “"dying”“ before making another appearance. Everyone else in the immortal community lowkey hates them. “Ah, fuck. You’ll never guess who’s resurfaced again.” “Fucking… Dave?” “Fucking Dave.”

domhnall-na-feannaig

lunacwolphe

Now I can reblog this

#keanu reeves

laporcupina

#why am i laughing so hard?

lingthusiasm

Gretchen: On the International Space Station, you have astronauts from the US and from other English speaking countries and you have cosmonauts from Russia. And obviously it’s very important to get your communication right if you’re on a tiny metal box circling the Earth or going somewhere. You don’t want to have a miscommunication there because you could end up floating in space in the wrong way. And so one of the things that they do on the ISS – so first of all every astronaut and cosmonaut needs to be bilingual in English and Russian because those are the languages of space. Lauren: Yep. Wait, the language of space are English and Russian? I’m sorry, I just said ‘yep’ and I didn’t really think about it, so that’s a fact is it? Gretchen: I mean, pretty much, yeah, if you go on astronaut training recruitment forums, which I have gone on to research this episode… Lauren: You’re got to have a backup job, Gretchen. Gretchen: I don’t think I’m going to become an astronaut, but I would like to do astronaut linguistics. And one of the things these forums say, is, you need to know stuff about math and engineering and, like, how to fly planes and so on. But they also say, you either have to arrive knowing English and Russian or they put you through an intensive language training course. But then when they’re up in space, one of the things that they do is have the English native speakers speak Russian and the Russian speakers speak English. Because the idea is, if you speak your native language, maybe you’re speaking too fast or maybe you’re not sure if the other person’s really understanding you. Whereas if you both speak the language you’re not as fluent in, then you arrive at a level where where people can be sure that the other person’s understanding. And by now, there’s kind of this hybrid English-Russian language that’s developed. Not a full-fledged language but kind of a- Lauren: Space Creole! Gretchen: Yeah, a Space Pidgin that the astronauts use to speak with each other! I don’t know if anyone’s written a grammar of it, but I really want to see a grammar of Space Pidgin.

Excerpt from Episode 1 of Lingthusiasm: Speaking a single language won’t bring about world peace. Listen to the full episode, read the transcript, or check out the show notes. (via lingthusiasm)

#SPACE #astronauts #language

chrisriddellblog

Today.

glumshoe

on how I inadvertently made my hometown haunted

I know I’ve shared this story before, but I can’t find it.

I grew up in a log cabin in the woods on the outskirts of a small rural town. It’s so small that it doesn’t actually show up on any maps - the only official marker is a small green sign on the edge of the road, and the longest-residing resident automatically becomes the mayor. We have a few houses, a gas station, a Masonic lodge, a Quaker church, and a couple of small graveyards. The rest is farm and woodland.

One day, I was visiting a school friend in the next town over. There were six or seven of us there, doing nothing but munching on pretzels, talking shit, and stewing in a questionable hot tub. I didn’t get out much, so this was a real party for me.

I stayed late because one girl I didn’t know offered to give me a ride home. I lived about 20 minutes away, but she didn’t mind - she liked driving country roads and wanted the practice. We were halfway there when I casually mentioned the name of my town and she nearly veered off the road.

She turned to stare at me in horror. “Are you serious?! I’m not driving there!”

“Why… not?” I had no idea what her problem was. It’s not like there’s a crime problem. Was it too far away? Was she going to leave me stranded?

“It’s super haunted. I hear so many bad stories about that place,” she said. I think my jaw dropped, but she was completely serious.

“What have you heard?” I asked. Haunted? And *I* didn’t know about it? Me, the kid who drank up ghost stories and urban legends like mother’s milk?

She explained how she’d heard stories about secret societies, strange rituals, black dogs, witches, mysterious gated roads, creepy houses, hooded figures roaming graveyards, and more. She was clearly terrified.

It took me a moment to process everything before I burst into laughter. Gasping for breath, I said, “That’s me! That’s all me! That’s literally all my family!”

My dad, a Freemason, had offered our woods as a location for rituals. My dog at the time, a black Labrador, was allowed to roam free. My parents often cooked over an open fire in a cauldron, either preparing food or chemical treatments for my father’s craftsmanship. Our log cabin we constructed out of pieces of old 18th century local buildings and is filled with oddities @. The hooded figures had been my birthday party, wandering the cemetery with lanterns ‘cause there was nowhere else to go.

“It’s not haunted,” I assured her. “That’s all just my family doing normal stuff. You can visit if you like. The scariest thing in town and the source of all these stories is already sitting next to you in your car, so what’s to fear?”

She did eventually calm down enough to drive me home, and we had a good laugh about it. I have no idea how far my town’s reputation for spookiness has reached, but I’m honored to be the inspiration of at least a few urban (rural?) legends.

vaspider

@seananmcguire, this must be what people who haven’t known you forever feel like when they meet you. >.>

seananmcguire

…yeah, pretty much.

#life goals

heyluchie

Ramen are one of the best confort foods.

Food Baby, my 42 pages, full color zine, is available for individual sale !

Inside you’ll find recipe comics, food related journal comics, eggs adventures and a exclusive introduction comic.

I hope you’ll consider it !

silverseafoam

YAY RAMEN

For folks who really get into ramen there’s also the blog The Ramen Rater, with comprehensive reviews of the quality of noodles, broth, and whatever else comes with a pack or cup.

Lately, I’ve been loving stirring a couple of raw beaten eggs into a base of tonkotsu (Sapporo Ichiban makes one with chicken, and it’s SO GOOD) or gomtang/seollontang (Paldo’s amazing for that) and adding leeks. It’s so comforting.

#life skill #ramen #cooking

silverybeing

I’ve been thinking about liminal spaces a bit tonight. And truck/rest stops are often considered to be liminal spaces. Having family a few states over, I’m no stranger to family road trips and, by extension rest stops. There is one thing about them that I’ve thought about for years.

People work there.

There are people who are not just passing through, but show up day after day, clock in, work for hours, and then go home. Where do they live? What are they like? Are these liminal spaces no longer liminal for them? Its a set destination for them now.

What sort of weird shit do they see every day that they just sigh and return to mopping the floor? The unusual that is just another day on the job. That weird otherworldiness at 3am but whatever I’m on a break.

Perhaps they are immune to the effects of the passing spirits mixing with the mundane, cause how can you be in a liminal space if its your job? Maybe they are special caretakers that keeps the spirits moving on their way, giving directions to things no one else is supposed to see.

Either way they aren’t paid enough to deal with this shit.

foolerrant

so i work at a highway servo in a small rural town and i’ve done so for about a year. and 100% the creepy shit doesn’t stop, but you do sort of become resigned to it. like in the beginning i once screamed because saw myself in the mirror behind the milk and thought it was not me. but here’s some stuff i guess:

we keep the doors locked because crime exists so they make a beep sound when someone’s waiting to enter, but the amount of times i have checked the monitor and there has been nothing and no one there is not enough to say ‘general sensory problem’ but just enough for my anxious personality to be wary of the ghosts.

occasionally i discover large strange bugs i have never seen before that apparently only exist in the dead of a hot summer night. i also watch a lot of spiders crawl across the outside cameras.

once a man came in around 2am – no car, just wandered off the highway – and took every sausage roll and walked out without paying. which okay, theft happens. but he did it, looking into my eyes, and did not say a word as i called after him. he just walked in calmly, looked into my soul, remained entirely silent, and casually robbed the place. i was shook.

a cousin of mine who had been missing for three months once showed up.

and there’s this totally dead period between 3 and 5 where i usually mop the floors. which is why its weird when i find footsteps in my clean floors after ive finished.

plus, time passes differently in the freezer room . i fill up four full fridges worth of coke and red bull and other assorted soft drinks in fifteen minutes – like i’m not trying that hard its really not possible. and i know that because when i do the three fridges that cant be filled from behind, it takes me more like forty minutes or more.

i get strange customers who come in asking for directions with out-dated melways who don’t own phones and seem misplaced in time somehow but are always so very thankful. sometimes they ask for directions to places ive never heard even tho i’ve lived in the area my entire life.

or i get the same person at the same time to get the same thing every day. they have the same greeting and we have the same conversation like we’re stuck in a time loop. these pod people always come between 4 and 5am.

and i can safely say, you will never know fear until there is a 3am power outage in a storm and you are blanketed in absolute darkness so suddenly your heart stops beating. and then you have been outside in said storm taking out the rubbish and become soaked through like a drowned rat with only the weird glow of ur phone light with a painful 3% battery life to guide you.

overall its just a strange environment: deathly silent, with flickering fluorescent lights and grime in the back store that no matter how hard i try to clean never comes away and footsteps in the newly moped floor even tho there hasn’t been a customer and this room at the back entirely empty save only for ancient promotional material for products i’ve never heard of that makes me feel uneasy.

#liminal spaces #american gothic