The School of Practical Skills & Knowledge

Crowdsourcing Resources & Knowledge for Daily Life, Filling In the Gaps, and Giving People Space to Grow (disclaimer: not a lawyer, not a doctor, just a collector of life advice & starting points - please do your research to verify if something will help you in your personal situation)

[schoolofpracticalskills]

Hello Friend!

Here, we're all about helping each other. The focus of this blog is compiling and crowdsourcing educational materials for skills and knowledge that affect your daily life, to help fill in the gaps that public & at-home education may have missed.

We are here to help with developing valuable life skills at every age - everything from cooking to job-hunting, housekeeping to budgeting, car maintenance to first aid.

We're going to talk about sustainability and civic engagement, and help you both make positive changes in your life, and find ways that you can help others without ignoring your own needs.

We're going to talk about critical thinking skills, communication, self-care, mental health, unpacking and unlearning purity culture & bigotry, intersectionality, community building, interdependence, and how to recognize, unlearn, and fight back against oppression and authoritarianism. Supporting the freedom of education and creating positive change in the world means looking out for all people — regardless of gender, sexuality, disability, nationality, intellect, ethnicity, religion, class, education, body type, or document status.

Everyone deserves space and opportunity to learn and ask questions free of judgment. If there is a subject that interests you, but you don't see on our blog already, please send us an ask. If you have posts, resources, or tags you think we'd be interested in, please share it with us! Keep striving! ‼️(disclaimer: not a lawyer, not a doctor, just a collector of life advice & starting points - please do your research to verify if something will help you in your personal situation)

🌈✨Tags Master List✨🌈

Resources | Free Resources | Low-Budget Living | Low-Spoons Living | Public Services | Support Your Local Food Banks | Support Your Local Library | Support Small & Local Businesses | Help Hotlines

Community Building | Civic Engagement | Ways to Help | Mutual Aid | Interdependence | Inclusivity | Intersectionality | Legal Rights & Protections

Reading Lists | Self-Education | Self-Accountability | Balancing Self-Care & Activism | People Are Good Actually

As our full master list of tags got very long and unwieldy, we've broken them down into the following categories and made separate posts. Please follow the links below to find the full list of all the topics we cover!

Human Rights, Civic Engagement, & Making Change

Self-Accountability & Unlearning Bigotry

Employment, Economics, & Academia

Housing, Household Skills, Crafting, & Arts

Literacy, Communication, & Critical Thinking

Sex Education, Gender Studies, Queer Studies

Health, Mental Health, & Disability

History, Science, Technology, Math, & Environmentalism

Survival Skills & Safety

[curlytrek1701]

K so not to be dramatic or anything, but there's a free vintage French pattern book available on antiquepatternlibrary so if you like to crochet/weave/make pixel art/tie epic friendship bracelets don't walk- RUN.

It has scenes from aesop's fables! Cherubs doing things! Beheadings! Greek muses! Little farm people! Intricate floral pattern! Goth stained-glass window like patterns! Fun little corner pieces! Eeeeeeeeeeeeee

https://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/html/warm/C-TT008-180.htm

[kleefkruid]

Every fun post on here that encourages people to have hobbies/be creative always gets an avalanche of "Some people are poor Karen" type reactions and respectfully, you're all super annoying. I've never lived above the poverty line and this is a list of hobbies I have that were cheap or entirely free:

Read books: Go to the library, lend a book from a friend

knitting, crochet, embroidery: Get some needles from the bargan store and ask around, people have leftovers from projects they'll happily give you. Thrift stores also often carry leftover fabric and other supplies. And talk about your hobby loud enough and an old lady will show up and gift you their whole collection, because there are way more old ladies with a closet full of wool than there are grandchildren who want to take up the hobby.

Origami/paper crafts: get some scrap paper and scissors, watch a youtube tutorial

walking: put on shoes open door

pilates/yoga/etc: get a mat or just use your carpet, watch a youtube tutorial

Houseplants: look online for people that swap plant cuttings. There are always people giving out stuff for free to get you started. If you're nice enough you'll probably get extra

gardening: You're gonna need some space for this one of course but you can just play around with seeds and cuttings from your grocery vegetables.

aquarium keeping is a bit of an obscure one but I got most of my stuff second hand for cheap or free and now I have a few thousand euro worth of material and plants.

drawing/art: You get very far just playing with bargan store materials. I did my entire art degree with mostly those.

writing: Rotate a cow in your head for free

cooking: again one you can make very expensive, but there are many budget recipes online for free. Look for African or Asian shops to get good rice and cheap spices.

Join a non-profit: Cities will have creative organisations who let you use woodworking machines or screen presses or laser cutters or 3D printers etc etc etc for a small fee. Some libraries also lend out materials.

candle making: You need some molds (cheap), wick, two old cooking pots for au bain marie melting and a ton of scrap candles, ask people to keep them aside for you.

a herbarium, flower pressing: Leaves are free, wildflowers too, ask if you can take from peoples gardens.

puzzles: thrift stores, your grandma probably

Citizen science: look for projects in your area or get the iNaturalist app

And lastly and most importantly: Share! Share your supllies, share your knowledge. Surround yourself with other creative people and before you know it someone will give you a pot of homemade jam and when you want to paint your kabinet someone will have leftover paint in just the right color and you can give them a homemade candle in return and everyone is having fun and building skills and friendships and not a cent is exchanged. We have always lived like this, it's what humans are build to do.

And all of it sure beats sitting behind a computer going "No stranger, I refuse to let myself have a good time."

Anyway I'm logging off bc I'm making some badges for a friend who cooked for me and then I'm going to fix some holes in everyones clothes.

[pomornika]

[odyver]

alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?

under 18, AI is a net positive

under 18, AI is a net negative

18-29, AI is a net positive

18-29, AI is a net negative

30-45, AI is a net positive

30-45, AI is a net negative

46-60, AI is a net positive

46-60, AI is a net negative

over 60, AI is a net postive

over 60, AI is a net negative

Remaining time: 4 days 54 minutes

[odyver]

Question 2/3

How often do you visit or interact with museums/archives (whether in person or online)?

Frequently (multiple times per month)

Often (multiple times per year)

Occasionally (a couple times per year)

Rarely (once every couple of years)

Never :(

Remaining time: 4 days 1 hour

[odyver]

Question 3/3

If you saw a museum was using AI in exhibits, marketing, research, etc., would you be more or less inclined to visit that museum?

under 18, more inclined

under 18, less inclined

18-29, more inclined

18-29, less inclined

30-45, more inclined

30-45, less inclined

46-60, more inclined

46-60, less inclined

over 60, more inclined

over 60, less inclined

Remaining time: 4 days 1 hour

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

🫶

[ifyouknowmeirlgoaway]

Whenever I see a post talking about how it's okay to steal from huge corporations, when they have shit like self checkout, I always want to jump up and say they have cameras and are collecting your information and you need to be so careful because yeah like they're inflating the prices and running monopolies and price fixing with competitors but everybody is caring about shoplifters more and that's really fucked up, but you also need to consider that Target might be keeping track of every time you don't scan something or intentionally scan it wrong, and just waiting for it to add up to a felony.

Which feels entirely beside the point and almost inappropriate to bring up when the point is that the customer is already a victim of theft, but I feel like there are people encouraging others to do stuff that can absolutely end up with them in jail without mentioning at all that it's a risk.

[stringlesswyrme]

This is real and here are some sources discussing facial recognition in various retail settings. fuck corporations but also go in knowing all the facts 🫡 Kashmir Hill is a great journalist who’s entire beat is facial recognition and how it’s deployed, and she’s an amazing resource if you want to learn more about facial recognition in general. highly recommend her new book on clearview ai too, it’s a great read

ACLU lawsuit that stops clearview from being sold to retail in the us (but doesn’t stop retail from buying other facial recognition tech) https://www.aclu.org/cases/aclu-v-clearview-ai

ACLU v. Clearview AI | American Civil Liberties Union

The ACLU, ACLU of Illinois, and the law firm Edelson PC filed a lawsuit on May 28, 2020 against Clearview AI alleging violation of Illinois

Retail stores are packed with unchecked facial recognition

Little regulation exists on the tech

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/technology/facial-recognition-stores.html

Which Stores Are Scanning Your Face? No One Knows.

Our reporter took a five-mile walk around Manhattan to find businesses that are using facial recognition technology.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/barred-from-grocery-stores-by-facial-recognition/

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/barred-from-grocery-stores-by-facial-recognition/

Macy’s hit with privacy lawsuit over alleged use of controversial facial recognition software

An Illinois woman has filed a federal lawsuit seeking class-action status against Macy's for allegedly using Clearview AI facial recognition

Targets privacy policy, scroll down to the camera section

Find out more about the Target Privacy Policy.

[ifyouknowmeirlgoaway]

You are the coolest person in the world to me for finding all those sources.

[blanketforcas]

if you share an insta post on tumblr, please remove everything after the question mark in that link. especially if you found it while logged into an account you don't want everyone to know about

if you don't, here's what insta will show people who click that link:

here's why and how you should remove trackers for pretty much any links you're sending or receiving

[silurisanguine]

Linktree will be feeding your images with DALL-E, Open AI from 5th July 2026.

Warning to anyone using Linktree.

From the 5th July, they'll be feeding all imagery you use on your landing page into DALL-E by OpenAI.

I deleted my account just now, because there was no way to turn this off or opt out.

[silurisanguine]

Update with some alternatives-

Carrd.co. Free alt with paid features.

Bento.app Currently free, integrated with bluesky

Everlink.tools Closest to Linktree, has some paid features.

Omg.lol Currently $20 a year. If paying for Linktree features this is a great upgrade.

[holy-leapin-splits-batman]

[jstor]

Out of the Card Catalog Closet - JSTOR Daily

Librarians gathered in 1970 to challenge Library of Congress classifications and catalog subject headings that aligned homosexuality with de

Tumblr is cutting off the preview text just before it gets good: "Librarians gathered in 1970 to challenge Library of Congress classifications and catalog subject headings that aligned homosexuality with deviance."

[doberbutts]

"Well are you a [controversial identity] supporter???"

My friend I do not know what to tell you here. My rule is and remains "I don't care what you call yourself because your actions and who you are as a person is more valuable to me" and "as long as everyone in the situation is an adult and is giving enthusiastic consent I genuinely do not give a fuck what you do" and "words are stupid and people are complicated so it doesn't matter if The Words Are Wrong as long as it makes you happy"

I'm a longer tables not higher walls kind of guy. Have a seat. Break bread with me. Tell me a story over dinner. I think that'll be better for the both of us.

[cheapandeasyfoodmydude]

Apple Dessert

Need + Price

Apple

1 for one or 1.50 for a pound

Brown Sugar

1 for a pound

Bread Crumbs

1 for about a pound

Butter

1

Cinnamon for a treat ;)

1-3

Process

Cut apple into small slices and or cubes

In a bowl follow 

(If you’re going to add cinnamon, mix in about 1 tsp in with the apples)

½ of the apple

1 Tbs of brown sugar

1 Tbs of Bread Crumbs

1 Tbs of Butter

The rest of the apples

1 Tbs of brown sugar

1 Tbs of butter

1 Tbs of Bread Crumbs

Put in the over at 350 for about 20 minutes or until apples are tender

[illusionremember]

The push for AI reminds me of the efforts made to kill the brick and mortar store, trying to remove the people that do the work and make the thing and bring it to you from the picture. It reminds me of how the past 3-4 generations of young adults (at least in America) have been pushed towards STEM and away from the trades, how manufacturing has gone fully in on overseas sweatshop labor, far away so people can pretend it doesn't happen.

It's all about abstraction. About manufacturing isolation and incompetence, and putting veils over the abuses heaped on the working class. We have a whole generations of people who were never taught to do or make things — they were taught to outsource it, and then taught and pressured to pretend that the harm to the people and the environment wasn't that serious. It's straight up classism in action, and AI is another tool designed to make us complicit.

It used to be:

You're too smart to work with your hands — that's for people that didn't go to college. You're smarter than that! We don't need to be inconvenienced by going into public spaces or having to make things for ourselves or get our hands dirty. We'll just pay someone to do that, and we'll look down on them for being in that kind of position while we're at it.

Now it's:

Save time and energy by using AI to make your reports, to summarize emails, to organize your finances. Too tired to think of what to eat? Have AI do that for you. Have AI replace your therapist/personal trainer/research partners. AI will do it faster, and make it effortless, so that you can go back to what you really wanna be doing, which I can only assume is docilely scrolling on social media, since AI is also here to handle communicating with your loved ones and making your images and videos.

AI is another stage of this same old shit. It puts an extra layer of abstraction between the consumer (the AI user) and the source of the labor (the people whose data and work is stolen), and its proponents glibly ignore or suppress awareness of its inherent damages (mass plagiarism, gross breaches of data privacy, widespread misinformation, the environmental damage caused by data centers, water & electricity waste).

AI proponents feel justified because it's just something else they pay to outsource to. Some users are put in a position where they are asked or forced to do it, or at least feel like they must, or else lose their income or fail their class. AI & Tech companies try to foster this perception that the AI will do the hard part, pulling things out like magic, with the user as the sole person affected or interacting with it. But that plagiarized and misinformed material is then spread to other people, often unlabeled, as though it were genuine and trustworthy, rather than poisoned fruit.

Once again, we're being taught that the people who do labor simply aren't smart enough to get someone else to do it for them. First it was physical labor, now it's creative, analytical, & problem-solving labor. Thinking and writing and analyzing was supposed to be the skill that put you up in the world, because you were using brains instead of muscle. Now, suddenly, that's the plebeian labor and grunt work that we should want to avoid.

There is no such thing as unskilled labor. But AI seeks to replace labor, specifically mental labor — to replace critical thinking, research skills, literacy, knowledge, analysis, and insight. Using AI is entirely about avoiding labor. It is not a skill that you can learn or apply in practical, replicable, reliable ways. But if mechanization to aid labor is to be worth using, then the effort, time, and money saved cannot be outweighed by the harm caused. AI fails at this — it is untrustworthy, expensive, plagiarizing, damaging, and in the end, it does not even do well what it proclaims to do.

Ergo, It's a scam, but a very lucrative one for the captial-owning classes... if they can just get everyone onboard. As with the push for overseas manufacturing, all-digital purchasing, and eliminating the trades, the goal is to increase profits; the result is to deplete us of our options, our developed and foundational skills, and our livelihoods.

We don't need AI. We don't need more apps or cheap plastic junk. We don't need convenience and comfort at the cost of substance.

We need glassmakers and carpenters and weavers. We need artists and writers and researchers. We need accountants and waste managers and farmers. We need lawyers and bakers and chemists. We need doctors and librarians and construction workers. We need ecologists and musicians and truckers.

What we need is time, and shelter, and food, and healthcare. We need options and choices. We need opportunities to grow skills, not tricks to avoid them.

[cooksforkisses]

Homemade curry!!!! - Boil mini potatoes in ½ cup water in a sautee pan until soft - Add green peas and chickpeas, adding more water if necessary - Make the curry sauce: 3 T full fat coconut milk 1 T tahini 1 T curry powder ½ t cayenne (or however hot you want it) 1 t garlic powder Lots of turmeric Salt and pepper - Add sauce once veggies are dry, simmer for 4-5 minutes

[lil-leviathan]

My sca event Saturday was canceled for weather so I went a little crazy buying sweaters at the thrift store to unravel. Four blends with a decent proportion of wool and one pretty variegated red cotton that will make some lovely towels. 5 pounds of potential yarn for $12!

Ft. Cats inspecting the goods

[lil-leviathan]

Ok I was most excited for this weird little shrug, and now I'm realizing why it's been so weird to take apart so far: it's crochet, not knit!

This yarn will be really soft and bouncy when I'm done, I know it

[lil-leviathan]

From yarn you came and to yarn you return.

Up next: finally building the pin loom I've had sitting unmade since like October

[lil-leviathan]

Pin loom is done and it works! I do need to get myself some of those long weaving needles though.

Spindle Mail arrived and I now have drop spindles! This one apparently glows in the dark.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

The Guts of Predatory Cats Can Destroy CWD Prions

The prions that cause chronic wasting disease in deer are nearly indestructible. So it's good news to learn cat guts are their mortal enemy.

Okay. So. You know how some people want to finish exterminating all large predatory mammals so they have less competition for deer and so they don't occasionally lose livestock? And you know how native deer species in North America have been hit increasingly hard with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in the past couple of decades due to overpopulation thanks to the eradication of large predatory mammals that normally keep them in check?

We already have evidence that reintroducing predatory mammals to their native ranges not only knocks deer populations back to a healthier level, and now we've discovered that apparently the digestive systems of cougars and bobcats are lethal to CWD prions. Prions are among the most difficult pathogens* to eliminate; you have to heat them up to about 1,800 degrees F in order to thoroughly destroy them. And prion diseases like CWD are almost universally fatal.

So to find that these wild cats can safely eat CWD-infected animals AND significantly reduce the chances that the prions will be spread to other deer is a pretty big deal, especially since some other animals like coyotes and crows do pass prions undamaged through their digestive systems. And it's just one more example of why an ecosystem needs all of the species that have evolved in it over thousands of years, not just those are convenient for humans to have around. The spread of CWD is directly related to the overpopulation of deer, and it's likely that continuing to reintroduce large predatory mammals to their native range will help quell this awful prion disease.

[headspace-hotel]

!!!!!

SYMBIOSIS

[systlin]

GARDENING 101, or Don’t Buy Expensive Compost Bins

People ALWAYS fuckin over-complicate compost. You don’t need a recipe, you don’t need to turn it or water it or whateverthefuck, you just. Pile shit up and let it rot.

Steps of composting;

1. Pile up organic stuff. Manure, food scraps, sticks, whatever. Throw all that shit in a pile.

2. Throw a couple shovelfuls of soil on there. (The soil contains all sorts of good nematodes and bacteria and fungi and all the other Good Bois that rot organics down.)

Now just…leave it alone. Throw more waste on there as it accumulates. Ignore. Don’t fuckin worry, my dudes, just leave it be. The Rot Squad has it from here.

After a year, move all the half-composted stuff on top aside to Pile #2, and lo and behold, what was once chicken manure, orange peels, moldy bread, and coffee grounds is now rich black humus. If there’s any chunks of stick or corn cob or whatever in there, just pick ‘em out and chuck them on Pile #2. Use the compost as you wish.

Now, will this sterilize any seeds in there? Fuck no. You could start a whole garden from a shovelful of my compost. Tomato seed, columbine seed, squash, blanketflower, nicotiana, echinacia, about thirty types of grass, raspberry, sunflower, strawberry, hyssop, and who knows what else.

So that’s why you spread the compost around plants, and then top it off with some more mulch, which will shade out any germinating seeds. Or plop it in planting holes.

The mulch will also rot down over time into MORE nice rich humus.

Next year, rake back the half-composted junk from pile #2, plop it back on pile #1, and repeat forever.

[systlin]

And if you’re just on shitty clay or sand?

COMPOST COMPOST COMPOST. MORE COMPOST MOAR COMPOST. Tilling compost into clay will absolutely transform your soil. Sand, the same.

Most local landfills will ALSO have a compost heap, and that, like mulch, will ALSO be available for cheap to free. Load up on that sweet black gold, and start a compost heap.

[timurmurtazin]

Don’t you need to have a certain ratio in the stuff you’re throwing in there, though? I vaguely remember the number 25:1 in terms of the amount of food waste and stuff you’re throwing in versus the amount of yard material like sticks and leaves, but I don’t know if the addition of pre formed soil changes that or not.

[systlin]

Nope fuckit it all rots down anyway.

Those ratios make it rot faster is all, but ain’t nobody got time to be out here mixing compost precisely.

[tealdearest]

Is there any reason I can’t do this in a ditch? The backyard used to have a broken in ground pool when we moved in so we tore it out and filled it in with construction site dirt, but it formed a two foot deep, eight feet long not-really-sinkhole because it wasn’t packed down very well. Can’t I just…throw the compost things into it and fill it up while forming some nice usable dirt?

[systlin]

Not a one. That would actually trap water and make it work even better.

[jayalaw]

@systlin would smell be an issue?

[systlin]

Not so long as you don’t put meat or dairy on it.

[headspace-hotel]

The bugs and critters and fungi do all the work and you just sit back and relax.