always changing

Feminist with a hill to die on. TERFS/SWERFS and Nazis (including Nazi Sympathizers) can block me right now.

[depsidase]

[warcrimesimulator]

[cyanide-sippy-cup]

For anybody not caught up: Tennessee just passed a new map that pretty much makes it so black neighborhoods have no power in local votes. Two things about this. While protestors were chanting "No Jim Crow", white Tennessee lawmakers were caught laughing on video. On top of this, Representative Justin Pearson and his brother KeShaun Pearson were arrested for trying to give their takes on the matter (which is not only their legal right but literally his job). If you give a shit about black people, help fight this. We can't allow a return to Jim Crow.

[reasonsforhope]

Terracotta Is a 3,000-Year-Old Solution to Fighting Extreme Heat

As water soaks into the pores, it permits evaporation to carry the heat of the vessel's immediate surroundings out and away. 

"In India, a 3,000-year-old technology is hitting the shelves—and flying off them—as South Asians struggle with rising summer temperatures.

Terracotta’s porous surface makes it a uniquely timeless passive cooling system. As water soaks into the pores, it permits evaporation to carry the heat of the vessel’s immediate surroundings out and away.

This principle has been cooling Indian homes since the Harappan Civilization that lived in the Indus Valley from ancient times. Yet it still has a role to play in the India of today, where companies are leveraging terracotta’s passive cooling to chill everything from buildings to food.

MittiCool is a company that manufactures terracotta refrigerators—capable of keeping items cool and preserved for 3 to 5 days in optimal conditions—all without power or ice. Currently sold out, it works by placing a tray of water in an upper chamber that seeps through the pores in the terracotta and cools the 50 liter interior space.

Another way that terracotta can replace electric cooling systems is through something called the Venturi effect. It states that as air moves from a large space into and through a narrow space, it must not only cool, but also speed up.

For this reason, Indian homes and verandah have been shaded by terracotta screens known as jaali for centuries. If air is to pass through the jaali it must necessarily speed up, leaving its moisture content behind in the pores of the terracotta. That moisture can then evaporate, repelling heat and cooling the area behind the jaali. 

CoolAnt is a design studio that’s using terracotta materials and designs to skin buildings and homes to mitigate the effects of the harsh summer sun. The same principles at work in a jaali could be applied at scale to a whole building facade.

Pictured: A closeup of one of CoolAnt's terracotta cooling facades. Photo from CoolAnt.

“We’ve harnessed its hydrophilic properties and observed average temperature drops of 7 or 8°C [14°F] across more than 30 sites,” in India, CoolAnt studio founder Monish Siripurapu told Scientific American.

Scientific American had reported that just 20% of Indian households can afford to run an air conditioner, while just 35% can afford to run a refrigerator. That’s a substantial home-life challenge when summer temperatures routinely climb above 100°F in most of the country...

Civilizations have dealt with extreme temperatures for millennia, and their best methods shouldn’t be overlooked in urban and suburban planning today."

-via Good News Network, September 1, 2025

[robotslenderman]

The recent hot VS cold polls have made me realise that a lot of people have no idea how to cool down.

As someone from a hot country that's regularly on fire, here's some tips:

WATER IS YOUR FRIEND! WATER! IS! YOUR! FRIEND! You can transfer SO much heat into this bad boy! You cannot cool down without water!

Wrists under the cold tap. Splash your face and the back of your neck. Fan yourself.

In some countries you can buy a little handeld fan with a water sprayer.

Damp tea towel around the neck. Stick an ice pack in there on hotter days.

Half fill a water bottle with water, stick in freezer. If you use a bottle with a straw, make sure it's lying on its side with the straw side up and out of the water. When frozen top up the rest of the way with tap water and off you go.

Desperate to cool off? Wet T-shirt. Sit in front of a fan. This will nuke it, just don't get hypothermia and don't fall asleep like this.

Cold showers are also your friend in summer. Some people get psyched up by these. Personally, I sleep like a baby, so I'm good to have them before bed. Just keep in mind that it takes a bit of time for the cool to circulate, so your body will tell you that you're colder than you actually are. I find that when I have cold showers I need to step out of the spray when I think I'm cold... I'll just wait, and thirty seconds later the temperature has evened out and I actually need to step under again. Rinse and repeat until you maintain coolness even after stepping out for a bit.

If you can't do cold showers, turn the cold shower on anyway and just stick your arms under. When they're cold, lift your arms up above your head. The sensation of cool blood draining into your body is fucking weird and kinda unpleasant but less unpleasant than being hot.

Feet in a tub of water with ice. Blood naturally flows to your extremities when hot, so take advantage of this. If you don't have a tub of ice water, sticking a wet rag on your feet in front of the fan works too, it's the less powerful version of the wet T-shirt.

Drinks lots of water but make sure that water has electrolytes as well. Stay in the shade.

Keep air circulating. Fans don't actually cool rooms down, they just help transfer heat from your body to the moisture on your skin or the air via evaporative cooling.

Block north facing windows early in the morning so the sun doesn't get in. If you're in the northern hemisphere, this is opposite for you. Keep in mind that if your home is brick, the bricks will still heat up and slowly release heat into your home even after the sun goes down so this will only do so much.

If it's hotter inside than outside, close all your windows but two, making sure they're on opposite sides of the house/unit you're in. Point a fan out of one window, making sure that the doors between the rooms with the open windows are all open. This will help create a mini pressure system in your home, pulling cooler air in and pushing the hotter air out via the fan. Bonus points if you can get that fan high up where the hot air rises; even within a single room the top is much hotter than the air by the floor. Adjust the amount of open windows based on how many fans you have, but generally you want more windows with fans open than windows without fans to keep the pressure correct.

Obviously, use your common sense for these. Not everything WILL work for you, just use the stuff that does and adjust what needs to be adjusted. Some of these will be impossible to use in the workplace but others you can still use. Others are best used at home. If humidity impacts your ability to use any of these, get a dehumidifier if that's an option, or use more ice instead of evaporation.

Also keep in mind that the skinnier you are, the faster these will work. More fat means more insulation, means more heat, so you may need to be more patient with some of these or use them in combination.

[robotslenderman]

Bringing this back for my dying mutuals

[horsegirlwarcrimes]

my heat intolerant girlies must remember this advice to survive the summer

additionally:

light colored, loose, thin clothing is your best friend. linen is the best fabric for this but cotton and bamboo are also good. polyester, wool, etc will trap both heat and sweat.

having as little clothing on as possible can feel better because it means less heat trapped against your skin and allows your sweat to cool you, but its not always the best choice for preventing heatstroke. in dry climates, consider covering up more with light, loose clothing to keep the direct sun off your skin, as the sun and heat will suck up moisture and leave you vulnerable to dehydration and heatstroke. in humid climates, though, less clothing may be a better choice as humidity can cause the fabric to become soggy which causes it to trap more heat.

the noble parasol is a classic for a reason.

low blood sugar can make heat exhaustion more serious. if this is a concern for you, make sure to eat plenty throughout the day as well as drinking plenty of fluids.

alcohol and caffeine both make you more susceptible to heatstroke. extreme heat + alcohol is a common cause of heat related deaths due to the strain it puts on the heart.

like hypothermia, a past history of heat exhaustion also makes you more susceptible to heat exhaustion and heatstroke, as does menstruation/being on your period.

read over the symptoms and treatment of both heat exhaustion and heatstroke. keep a lookout on those around you when outside in extreme heat and be ready to provide care if someone begins showing symptoms of heat exhaustion. early intervention is key in preventing heatstroke, which is life threatening. disorientation in particular is something to look out for, as the person experiencing it may not notice or be able to communicate the issue.

[geopsych]

One of the things that bears repeating before the hot weather takes over is that once your body reaches a certain temperature you can no longer count on making good decisions that you would normally make and you can no longer count on your physical coordination.

Keeping yourself as cool as possible isn't being weak or wimpy. It's protecting your capacity to think and move well if you need to.

In France and other countries last week it was clear that some people died from doing things they never would have done had they been thinking clearly. That confusion can happen to anyone and it comes sooner than people expect. Please, my Tumblr friends in places that will be getting very hot this week, be safe! Don't tough it out and don't take chances. Go somewhere cool if you can and of course, hydrate!

[youngadultread]

“Teachers are often unaware of the gender distribution of talk in their classrooms. They usually consider that they give equal amounts of attention to girls and boys, and it is only when they make a tape recording that they realize that boys are dominating the interactions. Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time. In other public contexts, too, such as seminars and debates, when women and men are deliberately given an equal amount of the highly valued talking time, there is often a perception that they are getting more than their fair share. Dale Spender explains this as follows: “The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.” In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as ‘too much’ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts.”

—

PBS: Language as Prejudice - Myth #6: Women Talk Too Much (via misandry-mermaid)

Every EVERY women’s studies class I’ve been in has had this problem and failed to address it. 

(via iamayoungfeminist)

[depsidase]

[burgerdotcom]

reblogs were off

[thckskulll]

[loth-caatgirl]

[depsidase]

[depsidase]

[weepingwitch]

i do wish the response to the ai water usage concern debate (umm actually the water and mineral usage is roughly equivalent to all of our other constantly growing massive distributed information systems that require enormous amounts of resource extraction etc etc etc) was less of a "haha checkmate luddites" and more of a "hmm maybe we should reevaluate our usage of constantly growing massive distributed information systems that require enormous amounts of resource extraction" but idk

[sadhoc]

as someone who has been involved in union organizing through my dad's union since i was literally in second grade, the way that people on tumblr think unions work drives me literally insane

[sadhoc]

unions do so much more than just strike. unions bargain. unions sit in at meetings with upper management. unions help people navigate benefits. unions coordinate aid drives for disabled members. my union ran a donations campaign for me for the interim between the end of my allotted paid leave and my disability claim

[sadhoc]

"unionize your workplace" means so much more than "talk to your coworkers about striking." you gotta actively know what a union is and what a union isn't before you can form one. calls to unionize should lead to more people learning their rights and learning how unions work, and coordinating with orgs like seiu and the teamsters and the aft (and if you don't know what those are, look them up).

[electricpentacle]

My union found me a legal expert to help me check over my last redundancy settlement for free, provided private medical cover whilst I was unemployed, and negotiated a good deal on cheap insurance for their members. It is so much more than strikes.

[bonearenaofmyskull]

Forming a Union at a Non-Union Workplace - Worker.gov

Forming a union at a non-union workplace You have the right to join with coworkers to address conditions at work. The National Labor Relatio

Form a Union | AFL-CIO

[literary-sparks]

“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

[muzzlesbian]

just saw a post talking about the misogynistic phenomenon of men frequently offloading household tasks to women & expecting us to do them... and describing it as "learned helplessness"

we are putting that term on the shelf

[muzzlesbian]

Learned helplessness is the behavior exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control. In humans, learned helplessness is related to the concept of self-efficacy, the individual's belief in their innate ability to achieve goals.

literal first paragraph of the wikipedia article for learned helplessness. this is a depression symptom. it is frequently caused by lifelong abuse from controlling authority figures. it is the exact OPPOSITE of an abuse tactic and would most likely be displayed by the WOMEN in that kind of scenario!!

the actual relevant term for what the man is doing is probably "weaponized incompetence" which is an abuse tactic. please for the love of fuck do not conflate the two