All those "spend just 35 minutes doing a bunch of really hard exercises and you'll feel great forever!" videos are really discouraging. I usually end up doing like, 2 minutes of some of his while waiting for my shower to heat up, and ykw?
That's 2 minutes more than I would have done otherwise.
oh hey I have a thing like that last one that I like to do sometimes, but I do it lying down in bed. it's a very satisfying pop/shift in my hips/lower back, but doesn't always work. maybe I will try his version and see if it is more effective for me
if you've ever noticed that indeed barely has any jobs on it lately, it's NOT just you. they started charging companies to post job listings on there and it seems to have significantly decreased the amount of posts (at least anecdotally).
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
It may strike you as weird, but lenders love to lend money to poor people who will have trouble paying back their loans. Obviously, lenders want to be repaid, and obviously the more money you have, the easier it is to settle your debts, but (paradoxically) that means that if you have a lot of money, you expect to pay less to borrow.
In other words: because poor people have a higher likelihood of defaulting, their loans come with higher interest rates and worse terms. Debt is steeply regressive: the less money you have, the more you're expected to pay. The industry term for this is the "risk premium": the riskier a loan is, the more it costs the borrower.
Lenders are always seeking the highest possible return on their loan-books, which makes that "risk premium" awfully tempting. Why loan $1m to Elon Musk at 0.5% interest when you can make 10,000 $100 payday loans to non-union Tesla workers on food stamps at 1,000% interest?
Obviously, the fly in the ointment here is the risK in "risk premium." The reason the risk premium exists is that poor borrowers have a harder time paying their loans. That can be good, up to a point: if you're Klarna and you're originating loans to people Chipotle lunches on the installment plan, you want your borrowers to miss several payments. Klarna loans are free if you pay them back on time, but if you miss a payment, you're hit with a huge penalty charge and sky-high interest (on top of the principle and the penalty). On a small purchase, penalties and interest can quickly add up to a triple-digit APR.
That's where Klarna makes its money: people who miss their burrito installment payments. However: if a Klarna borrower goes bankrupt before they've repaid the principle, Klarna loses money. A successful loan-book of unsecured burrito mortgages depends on the existence of many missed payments and few defaults.
"Financial innovation" is often just a project to decrease the risk in risky loans, but without decreasing the risk premium you get paid for issuing those loans. It's a way to eat your cake and have it too: even though you've reduced the likelihood that you'll have to write off your loan, you still charge the borrower as though that risk is unchanged. As with so many aspect of finance, "innovation in lending" is a way to shift value from the financial industry's customers to itself.
Remember the subprime crisis? The whole point of collateralized debt obligations and swaps was to offer loans to people with bad credit – even loans they obviously couldn't pay back – without incurring a default risk. Subprime mortgages supercharged the practice of loan origination and resale (where a bank offers you a loan and then sells that loan to someone else, so your default becomes their problem) by splitting the loans into pieces. These pieces were recombined according to complex mathematical formulas that supposedly "proved" that the default risk from poor borrowers had been "offset" by combining them with other borrowers' loans and wrapping them in opaque insurance contracts.
Those subprime mortgages came with cheap "teaser rates" – the interest rate you paid over the first couple years – but then the interest payments "ballooned" to farcical sums that borrowers had no hope of repaying. Those farcical sums were the risk premium. When financier transmuted these high-risk 30-year mortgages into complex derivatives, they were effectively promising their customers a piece of that risk premium for 28 out of the 30 years that the mortgage ran for.
But it wasn't all financial engineering: subprime mortgage salesmen could also promise customers that they wouldn't lose everything even after a wave of borrower bankruptcies and defaults. That's because mortgages are secured: they are backed by deeds for the homes the borrowers own(ed). If a borrower goes bust, the lender can repossess their house or apartment and sell it to recover the loan amount.
Now, the finance sector did repossess a fuckton of houses after the crash. Foreclosure and eviction became official policy: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Obama that a wave of foreclosures was necessary to "foam the runways" for the banks, so Obama encouraged banks to foreclose on their loans, rather than restructuring them so that Americans could keep their homes:
But even with these foreclosures, lenders and their customers lost hundreds of billions on the subprime crisis. That's because all that subprime lending pushed the price of houses up and up and up, so when the market collapsed, those mortgages were "underwater" – the money from selling the foreclosed homes didn't cover their outstanding loans.
Collateralization – backing loans with legally binding promises to surrender some asset if you default – is a way to reduce risk, but it can't eliminate it. Assets degrade: houses burn, cars get totaled, jewelry is stolen. Assets also devalue: a loan backed by bitcoin at $111,000 on the eve of Trump's election will be underwater today with bitcoin at $64,000. This devaluation can also occur when your house's value plummets because Elon Musk repeatedly bombs your neighborhood with flaming rocket debris, or when your Tesla's resale value collapses after Musk throws a string of Seig Heils on national television.
The point being that risk mitigation is never risk elimination, but markets have a hard time distinguishing between the two. Partly that's because of risk shifting. A lender who can "securitize" their loans (turn them into bonds and sell them off to investors) can insulate themselves from risk, because the people who buy the bonds are now carrying that risk.
So many of our crises come from the intersection of these two phenomena: the promise of reducing loan risks without losing the risk premium and the fact that risk reduction can fail suddenly (or be revealed as nothing more than risk-shifting). The first phenomenon creates vast credit bubbles, the second one pops them.
This leaves would-be usurers on an endless quest for new ways to lend money at a premium to poor people while reducing their own risk. You don't need technology to do this – all you need is a captive audience of broke people whom other lenders won't touch.
When the US government adopted the racist practice of "redlining" (denying government-backed loans to Black borrowers), they created a market for predatory pseudo-mortgages called "contract buying." Contract buying is like a mortgage, but without the equity: miss a payment and you get evicted, and you aren't entitled to any of the sale price of the house, even if it was 99.99% paid off when you got kicked out.
Lenders can tip the scales in their favor by making up arbitrary junk fees, and a smart lender waits until the house is almost paid off before whacking the borrower with a ton of these fees. The borrower misses a payment, the seller repossesses the house and sells it again:
Contract lending never went away. Wherever you find a desperate, disfavored group who are locked out of the credit system, you'll find scumbag contract lenders running this scam. Take long-haul truckers, among the most exploited workforce in America. Long before Uber made worker misclassification (treating an employee as an independent contractor) mainstream, the trucking industry was effectively indenturing truckers, exerting more control over their lives than a boss could ever impose on a waged worker, while disclaiming any employer-related responsibilities. Truckers don't get health insurance or sick leave – and they don't get paid if they have to sit at a port for 20 hours waiting to pick up a load.
But the exploitation of truckers doesn't stop with mere wage theft. Truckers also "contract buy" their trucks. Their bosses issue loans that let drivers buy their trucks on terms that allow the company to repo the truck after a single missed payment. And of course, bosses have total control over truckers' wages, so a canny boss can wait until a truck is nearly paid off and then stop the driver's wages, forcing them to miss a payment and lose their truck, which can be sold on to the next victim:
Subprime auto-loans bring this same profitable arrangement to regular drivers who just need a car to commute, pick up groceries, and shuttle the kids to and from school. A subprime auto-loan often contains the "teaser" and "balloon" rates at the heart of the subprime mortgage bubble: for the first year or two, your car payments are affordable, but then they shoot up to a sum that you can't possibly pay. The lender then repossesses your car, zeroing out your equity, and sells it to another victim:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s
But the subprime car industry puts a decidedly modern spin on the contract lending scam that has been used to profitably rob so many Black home borrowers and long-haul truckers. Subprime lending's risk-reduction relies on repossession. A subprime car lender doesn't just get rich by charging poor borrowers more money that rich borrowers for shittier, older cars. Subprime car dealers repeatedly "sell" that car to many, many poor people, on conditions that all but guarantee that the borrower will default on their loan and lose their car.
This is where tech comes in. Ubiquitous digital networks and computing make it much easier to repo a car. This started with the humble lo-jack, a simple tracker marketed as a way to locate lost or stolen cars. Subprime auto-lenders were early and aggressive lo-jack adopters, because you can't repo a car if you don't know where it is. Installing a lo-jack is much cheaper than paying repo men to drive around looking for the cars you want to claw back, which means that you can sell cars to people who represent worse credit risks, charging a higher risk premium, and still find the car when those high interest rates force your borrower into default.
The next wave of automotive usury-tech was a kind of systematic exploration of the entire space between a car that is repossessed and a car that isn't. Some subprime cars are fitted with an extra stereo system that can only be controlled by the borrower over a wireless connection. Miss a payment and this secondary stereo turns itself on and starts playing earsplitting threats about what will happen to you if you don't pay up. The only way to turn it off is to make the payment. The next step is remote immobilization: miss too many payments (or violate a lease clause by crossing the county line) and your car just stops working:
But the apex of this usury-tech comes from (where else?) Tesla. Miss a Tesla payment and your car can do way more than just immobilize itself and tell the dealer where to get the car – it also unlock its doors, flash its lights, honk its horn, and back out of its parking space when the repo man arrives:
The cheaper the repo, the riskier the loan can be; the riskier the loan, the higher the risk premium. Digital tech makes repo much cheaper, so wherever you find digital tech, you find digital arm-breakers coming up with ways to robo-repo the things you buy.
There's India's subprime phone lenders, who pre-install usury-tech on their phones. This is a tool that spies on the phone's owner, building a dossier of the owner's most frequently used apps. When the owner misses a payment, the phone starts disabling the user's favorite apps, working its way up the list to the most indispensable ones:
It's the digital version of the mob loan-shark who breaks a finger, then your hand, then your arm. The more graduated the threat matrix is, the more payments you can capture. A borrower with a broken finger can get to a pawn-broker to sell their wedding-ring; a borrower with two broken legs has a much harder time.
Digital arm-breakers aren't an epiphenomenon of digitization alone. Usury tech only works if the device's owner can't disable it. Remember: a computer is flexible. The only computer we know how to make is the "Turing-complete, universal von Neumann machine," defined as a device that can compute ever valid program. If your phone is running a program that disables your apps, then you can install another program that disables that program. Same goes for your car's lo-jack; the stereo system emitting ear-splitting complaints about your car note; and the immobilizer hooked up to your ignition.
That's where the law comes in. In 1998, Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to produce a tool that bypasses an "access control." That means that if a computer is designed to block you from modifying it, removing that block is a felony, punishable by five years in prison and a $500k fine. DMCA 1201 doesn't distinguish between modifications undertaken for a lawful purpose (changing your printer so it works with generic ink) and unlawful purpose (breaking the locks on a DVD so you can sell infringing copies). DMCA 1201 criminalizes anything the manufacturer dislikes. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model."
DMCA 1201 is the reason you can't neutralize the digital arm-breakers by deleting or blocking the usury-tech in your car, phone or other device:
Here's where it gets interesting. Apologists for DMCA 1201 insist that the law is necessary, because it lets device makers lock malicious parties out of your devices. Apple leads the pack here: they use DMCA 1201 to block independent repair of their devices, insisting that this isn't done to extort high fees from you or to force you to throw away and replace last year's iPhone after you drop it. No, Apple does this to protect you – from unscrupulous repairers who might install malware on your phone:
And Apple says the reason it blocks you from installing apps without using its App Store is to protect you from malicious apps – not to control the app marketplace, where it makes $100b/year on payment processing junk-fees, siphoning off 30% of every dollar you spend in an app:
Apple's greatest accomplishment isn't technological, it's psychological. Apple managed to convince millions of people that buying products from a multi-trillion dollar corporation with close ties to both Trump and Xi makes them members of an oppressed religious minority, and those members of the "cult of Mac" tie themselves into knots insisting that Apple would only ever use its powers for good:
But moral behavior doesn't consist solely of resisting the temptation to do bad things – to be truly moral, you must not put yourself in temptation's path in the first place. Morality isn't the strength to resist the siren's song – it's the humility to recognize your own weakness and tie yourself to the mast:
By giving itself a veto over its customers' choices, Apple deliberately sailed into siren-infested waters, after first putting a gun on every mantelpiece it could find. Now the company is drowning in sin, while spraying gunfire in every direction.
Today, the company is getting into the leasing business. Having monopolized its markets and eliminated the possibility of growth by making and selling things, the company is becoming a lender. As a lender, Apple wants to maximize the risk premiums it can charge, while minimizing its actual risk. That's why the new version of iOS – the operating system for iPhones and iPads – comes with software that lets lenders brick your device if you miss a payment:
The code steals a trick from India's subprime phone lenders, giving Apple the ability to "restrict apps and services when payments are missed." It hooks into a "Partner Finance Lock," which allows Apple to sell devices to third-party userers who want to get into the subprime game, promising those customers all the imaginative flexibility a digital arm-breaker could dream of.
This was always the trajectory of Apple's decision to sell you a computer that takes orders from its manufacturer, rather than its owner. Apple didn't invent the subprime gadget. It also didn't invent the GUI, the MP3 player or the smartphone. Rather, Apple took those gadgets mainstream – just as it will do with subprime gadgets. Just in time for the affordability crisis, the oil shock, the climate shock, the AI collapse and the tariff shock, the age of the digital arm-breaker has well and truly arrived:
Hi everyone! If you saw a previous version of this post, please reblog this one instead! We forgot to add some information before, so this is your up-to-date VirtualDash post :)
We are so excited to share with y'all a *locked in* version of the schedule, beautifully visualized by our social media team on our instagram!
Don't have your VirtualDash ticket yet? Get it here!
A VirtualDash ticket gets you access to livestreams of all the IRL panel rooms, a Virtual-exclusive track of panel programming, the VODs of all these streams, lets you try out our all-new Virtual Ballpit, gets you a vote in the democratic execution, invites you into the attendee server for an immersive convention experience, and much more! Also, 10% of our Virtual ticket sales goes towards the Rainbow Railroad charity <3
↓ View all of our Virtual-exclusive programming below the cut ↓
Pre-Con Programming
We’ve been cooking this up in the background: A week prior to DashCon proper, please join your fellow DashConners and Tumblrinas as we dip our toes into a VirtualDash experience on July 25th, at 12:00 - 7:00 PM EDT. Important: The events below are open to all VirtualDash and IRLDash ticketholders who connect to the Dashcon 2 (2026) discord server as described in your ticket receipt email! (For questions, contact [email protected] )
Tumblr Heritage Posts Kahoot hosted by @anonymoussong
12:00pm-1:30pm EDT
How well do you know this hellsite? Get quizzed on some of the site's most popular posts in a Kahoot game against your fellow Tumblrinas. Run by a long-time Tumblr hostage resident!
Crow and Tell
1:45pm-2:45pm EDT
A virtual crow exchange– participants (like you!) can present to the room unique items, strange artifacts, and meaningful trinkets. To sign up to share your Crow and Tell offering, please click the following link for more details, share your precious with us, and we’ll be in touch! https://forms.gle/tLUGyfpJYCDbj1dR6
Dashcon 2 Magma
3pm-4pm EDT
Blorbos welcome! Join us on a collaborative whiteboard to noodle, share and exchange doodles, and help us create a virtual “group photo” to hang on our fridge.
Hamilton Sing-Along
4:15pm-7pm EDT
The World’s Turned Upside Down, and we’re singing along to Hamilton in 2026. It’s been nearly 11 years since the broadway debut of Hamilton, and I still have a certain drawing of Thomas Jefferson on my desktop.
Saturday, August 1st at VirtualDash
Saturday, we have a very special treat for everyone. We are hosting Tumblr University! This block of panels all in some way teach us a selection of skills, or in some other way remind us of that theme :)
‘Frog tongues attach at the front of the mouth’ and other fun facts: Science and stories from the Curator of Herpetology at the Natural History Museum Denmark
10am - 11:30am EDT
Hosted by @markscherz
Last year, he said that DashCon 2 could have used more frog science. This year, he delivers.
One Fan Band: The Basics of Making Your Own Fanmusic
11:45am - 12:45pm EDT
Hosted by @caramiaddio
Everyday, fanmusic is left behind. But with YOUR help, it can thrive. Join the lead composer of Goncharov in the basics of writing fanmusic!
Unmasking the Masq: What do know before joining your first Cosplay Masquerade
1pm - 1:30pm EDT
Hosted by @mackdizzy
Want to hop into the world of the Masq? Join this cos-performance veteran as she walks you through the ins and outs of the cosplay Masquerade.
Yarn wig styling with Julie Joyful
1:45pm - 3:15 pm EDT
Hosted by @hazelri
This little monster needs a new wig! Come learn about yarn wig styling from a Julie Joyful cosplayer: is knee length hair.. long enough?
3AM to Ao3: A Guide to Writing and Posting Your First Fanfiction
3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
Hosted by @publiccmenace
A quick guide to writing and posting your first fanfic!
Fanwork Exchanges 101
4:45pm - 5:45pm EDT
Hosted by @antimony-medusa, @mackdizzy, @jaybin-superiority, @creetchure, @that-fall-guy
Do you want to host a fanworks exchange? Join Fanworks Exchanges 101 to learn about hosting exchanges, participating, and general fanworks!
The Muppet Joker’s Quiet Sock Puppet Craft Corner
6pm - 7:30pm EDT
Hosted by @the-muppet-joker
Bring sock. Hot glue gun. Cardboard. Felt. Scissors. Yarn. Googly eyes. A ritual, reversed. A murder, unsolved. Oh baby. We makin puppets.
Syd and Marti Dissect Classic Literature: Why the Road not Taken by Robert Frost is an Allegory for Dreamnotfound
9:15pm - 10:15pm EDT
Hosted by @disaster-syd
Join us on a journey of a brain melting fandom analysis and totally not fake DNF kiss proofs!!!! (not clickbait! We cried?!)
Strange Croaker (TTRPG)
10:30pm - 12am EDT
Hosted by @em-7dice + players!
Join in watching a live playthrough of the DashCon 2 themed one-page TTRPG, Strange Croaker.
Overnight Programming
AMV Showcase
After the final panel on Saturday, we will start off our Virtual AMV showcase! Expected to run for hours, feel free to tune into the overnight stage and enjoy some awesome AMVs submitted by all of you!
Sunday, August 2nd at VirtualDash
On Sunday, we have a grab bag of panels somewhere on the spectrum between informative and bonkers, with some deep dives into Internet/Tumblr/DashCon 2 history and peculiarities!
Bionicle and Gender
8am - 8:30am EDT
Hosted by @LucasBuilds
It turns out one of LEGO's most iconic themes lends itself to some interesting readings when it comes to gender. Join me as I attempt to explain just how Bionicle has become a part of trans culture.
The Prince and Blorbos
8:45am - 9:45am EDT
Hosted by @theabigailthorn
Join Abigail Thorn as she talks about fanfic, blorbos, and The Prince!
Victorian Children
10am - 10:30am EDT
Hosted by @thesequelnobodywanted
We've all seen the online meme: "[insert modern thing here] would kill a Victorian child," but…would it? Join me as we BECOME the Victorian child, and take an amateur deep dive into their society, and their own smut literature. Together we'll find out how much hot cheetos, McDonalds Sprite, and sentient smut books would REALLY shock our Victorian counterparts.
"I block all blaze posts, but yours."
10:45am - 11:45am EDT
Hosted by @millenniallust4death
If you've celebrated Martin and Bosco Day on July 13, then you already know them. What happens to a post that Tumblr users keep blazing?
The Unofficial Neopets Crash Course to Late Stage Capitalism
12pm - 12:45pm EDT
Hosted by @maryjubran, @iammai, @dreadpiratecthulhu
Neopets has thrived since 1999. But at what cost? A story of what happens when capitalists greedily take over a virtual pet game.
Unsinkable: A History of Shipping Culture
1pm - 2pm EDT
Hosted by @watchinghimrakeleaves
This panel will journey through some of the earliest examples of shipping, going all the way back to antiquity, before delving into the birth of modern fandom in the 20th century as we discuss the highs and lows of current shipping culture
Underpants on the Outside: Why do superheroes Look Like That?
3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT
Hosted by @ohnoitstbskyen
A brief history of the superhero costume, what it used to mean and what it means now, and what it teaches us about character design.
Intro to Presidentblr (Or How I Found Myself Dedicating an Absurd Amount of My Time Pretending to be President Richard Nixon on Tumblr)
5pm - 6pm EDT
Hosted by @nixon-official
The mod of Nixon-Official attempts to unravel Presidentblr – Tumblr blogs role-playing as U.S. presidents and related historical figures.
A Musical Analysis of Shrek: Let's Get this Ogre and Done With
6:15pm - 7:15pm EDT
Hosted by @biggestdumbestduck
Come on a musical journey through the Shrek movies, as we analyze changes in a Totally Scientific way. BYOO^.(Bring Your Own Onion.)
da fanfiction of da fanfiction: Adapting My Immortal for the Stage
7:30pm - 9pm EDT
Hosted by @myimmortalplay
The team behind the My Immortal play explore where fan culture and performance collide. Dis iz4 al da goffik theatr kidz!1 No TERFs allowed!
Vampires Never Die: Why Vampire Fiction & Symbolism Never Goes Out of Style
9:15pm - 10:15pm EDT
Hosted by @yvesdot
Exploring everything vampires have ever symbolized—for classic Tumblr queer-monster types, and those impatient for whatever comes next.
Gregoria: A Historia
10:30pm - 12am EDT
Hosted by Lizzie Teddy & Gregory
The Dashcon 2 Discord is filled with mentions of "Gregory". Learn who she is, how she got there, and contribute to the Gregory lore yourself!
After the con
After the con weekend, the 2026 attendee server will be archived for viewing - meaning you'll still be able to read the messages, but won't be able to talk there any more. Join us for teary goodbyes and see-you-laters after our programming wraps up!
Another public service announcement. This time it’s air quality. Some of you are probably in it already if you’re in eastern Canada, New England or New York, but it’s sliding south, a huge mass of wildfire smoke. Please be careful. When it starts getting bad, especially, like when the sky gets orange or brownish, it’s best to run air purifiers in the house and wear N95 or KN95 masks when you have to go outside.
It harms your lungs and it’s especially bad for children (and pets!) or anyone with health problems. There are all kinds of chemicals in that smoke. It’s not only trees that are burning. The heat already makes it harder to breath. This makes it worse.
If any of you are experiencing it, feel free to tell about it in the comments. 💚
Also, throw out the mask every day and shower before you get in bed if you’ve been out or you’ll be breathing the particles all night. Stuff like that. It gets all over you, your skin, your hair, your clothes.
map.purpleair.com shows privately-owned sensors, in case you have a hard time finding a government site. It doesn't rely on government funding, so far as I know.
This map shows fine particle pollution (PM2.5) from wildfires and other sources. It provides a public resource of information to best prepar
to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube
they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!
i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies
Emergency cleaning: Unfuck your whole house in the shortest time possible
So, your landlord/parents/home inspector/favorite movie star is dropping by, and your place is a disaster. You don’t have much time to clean it up. You’re in emergency mode. Let’s get started.
Don’t panic. Panic leads to fear, fear leads to procrastination, procrastination leads to the dark side. You can do this, but you have to stay calm.
Unlike maintenance cleaning, we’re not looking to completely unfuck one space at a time. Instead, we want to decrease the overall mess in stages, spread evenly across the whole area that we’re concerned about. If you think your home is at Level 10 filth, we want to bring the whole thing down to a Level 9, and then down from there. One really clean spot in an otherwise messy home is not going to be helpful here.
Get prepared. You’ll want to shut the computer down (or turn the modem off if you need your computer to play music). Trust me. Get your music going. Gather up trash bags, your vacuum and mop, some rags or paper towel, sponges, and other cleaning supplies. Use what you have on hand. Don’t get distracted running to the store and spending an hour browsing cleaning supplies. A multi-purpose cleaning concentrate or a jug of vinegar will be just fine.
Breaks are very important. Depending on your time constraints, work in 20/10s (20 minutes working, 10-minute break) or 45/15s. But take breaks because otherwise you’re marathoning, and marathon cleaning is no one’s friend. Keep hydrated, don’t forget to eat, and check in with yourself frequently to make sure you’re physically doing OK.
Make your bed. This will be your home base if you get overwhelmed or need somewhere clear to take a break.
Start with the garbage. Going from room to room, throw out anything that is obvious trash. Once you fill a bag, take it out. Repeat as many times as necessary.
Move on to dishes. Gather the dishes from all over your house and bring them to the kitchen. If you can, start them soaking in a sink of hot, soapy water or start loading the dishwasher. After the dishes are all in one place, spend one 20/10 getting started getting them under control.
Now it’s time for your flat surfaces. Countertops, tables, dresser tops, etc. Clear them off and wipe them down. Don’t get distracted in too much sorting and organizing. We’re in crisis mode here. There will be time to get in-depth once this is all done. The same applies to cabinets and closets. Unless you have reason to believe people will be opening closed doors, leave these alone for now.
Attack the floordrobe and shoe pile. Get your clothes either put away or in the hamper. Start a load of laundry if you need to, but keep in mind that laundry and dishes have three steps: wash, dry, and put it away, goddammit!
Get random stuff up off the floors. If something is trash-worthy, throw it away now rather than just move it around a bunch of times. Otherwise, put stuff where it belongs.
Take another 20/10 or 45/15 to catch up on more dishes, if needed.
Head into the bathroom. Pour some cleaner in the toilet bowl, fill the sink with hot water and cleaner, and either spray the tub and shower with cleaner, or fill the tub up with some hot water and add cleaner and let it soak. Put everything away that’s out and shouldn’t be, clean the mirror, counters, and toilet seat. Sweep or dry mop the floor. Wipe down the sink and tub/shower, and give the toilet bowl a scrub. Mop the floor.
Sweep and mop the kitchen floor.
Vacuum everything you can, and sweep everything you can’t.
Walk outside of your house (don’t lock yourself out, please). Walk back in and see what catches your eye first. Go and deal with that.
If you’re being inspected or your landlord is coming in for repairs, spend time on whatever area they’ll be focusing on.
Give the whole place one more once-over and pay attention to anything you’ve missed so far.
It’s an old trick, but if your place is a little funky-smelling, put a pan of water on the stove on low heat and add some citrus or cinnamon or vanilla. Don’t leave it unattended or forget about it.
Take a shower, put on something clean, and eat something.
You can do this. It’s overwhelming, yes, but it is not impossible. You just need to do it. You have a list. You have directions. You have a whole bunch of Internet strangers who have been there before and who are cheering you on. You can do this, but you need to get started.
the number of times in my past that I desperately wanted/needed someone to sit me down and tell me this stuff. I will never get back the hours and hours lost to headless-chicken mode, but it’s nice to know that in the last year I’ve learned so many coping mechanisms :D
“Because the truth is, tech doesn’t have an image problem. It doesn’t have a message problem. It has an intention problem. What’s wrong with the axe murderer who broke into my house is not that he hasn’t successfully persuaded me to buy into his narrative. What’s wrong is that he’s trying to kill me with an axe. Similarly, when you launch a product that’s designed to put millions of people out of work, block access to sources of verifiable truth, replace human creativity with slop, and lower the barriers to every sort of atrocity, the problem isn’t that you haven’t told the public a good story about those things. The problem is that you are trying to do them.”
People die on the job every summer. Remember that water and shade breaks are crucial when working in the heat, and calling emergency services for signs of serious heat illness (fatigue, nausea/vomiting, headaches, dizziness, clammy skin, confusion, agitation, slurred speech, high body temperature, rapid heart rate, etc.) is entirely appropriate. If you’re afraid to call 911 for reasons such as being undocumented, you’ll need to get very familiar with how to prevent, recognize, and treat heat illness. If you are symptomatic and not allowed a break, water, or medical treatment, walk out. No matter how broke you are, your job is not worth your life.
I saw this when running newpipe. But wait, it gets deeper. I clicked on the details buttons and it said as of today, we have 83 days left until Google rolls out this new requirement for apps inside and outside of the google play store. If any developer disagrees with their new terms and fees, they will be blocked!
I'll share some of the info below:
Looks like they're trying to nuke the remaining privacy and freedoms we have left on the internet.
What to do?
-Get your developer friends to not comply to their new guides
- Sign the open letter on the site and take action by checking out the full resources list on their website as well!
To summarize, this is all daunting especially when you feel all alone with unfair and inhumane regulations comming out faster than improvements but we got this working together!
Share the link with your friends, family and anyone who will listen!
Your phone is about to stop being yours. In September 2026, Google will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with them.
To be very clear about this: CPUs aren't magical devices that can operate forever. They generate heat. They wear out over time. This happens faster when they're operating near capacity. This is not just an attempt to inconvenience you; this is an attempt to damage your property.
For the "crime" of not wanting to be tracked/have ads pissed into your eyeballs 24/7.
Even if you've paid for the "privilege" of the latter.
Fuck Google, and I hope they get sued into oblivion over this.
i see everyone in the notes talking about newpipe but nobody's talking about youtube alternatives for desktop
IF YOU USE A DESKTOP PC OR LAPTOP, TRY INVIDIOUS
https://invidious.io/
it is a free, open-source alternative YouTube front-end. in addition to not having ads, it has other great QoL features like a download button. try one of the several instances on that link up there ^^^^
so i was super pissed and concerned about this but i have just discovered that while this is true, it is apparently only true for google chrome users. i just tested this by having ten tabs open in firefox playing ten different youtube videos at the same time and my cpu usage spiked to 25% as the videos were loading and then dropped back down to 10% as they played.
if you ever needed another reason to switch to a different browser, this is it.
US Americans who think of themselves as leftists: and this is why voting is useless and doesn't matter and also if you do vote in elections you're an evil dumb loser
The US right: so the goal is preventing women and marginalized people from voting and we'll be investing 100 willions of dollars into making this happen
Dudes healthcare is so fake. My ADHD meds are $940 without insurance. But they gave me a website of "coupons" which straight up looks like a scam website, and I got it today for $60! Just a coupon from a random website and it was $900 cheaper. America, I am confusion!! America explain!!
as a pharmacy technician i can share with you some websites that give you those "coupons" for your meds!
goodrx is the most well known one, but if i'm trying to find the cheapest price for a patient i compare it to scriptcycle, and use whichever is offering the best price. you just type in the medication (PLEASE make sure you're getting the right drug, dosage, and quantity) and your zip code and they will spit out some offers for you
some pharmacies may have their own discount card to compare to as well!
if you are getting a name brand medication, you can also look at the manufacturer's website to see if they offer any evouchers for you to use too
