[rosysugarr]

no actually I’m gonna give this its own post.

get yourself a USB stick from any dollar store, install ubuntu with persistent storage on it. There is literally no reason not to, and it means that you now have a little computer of your very own that no one except those who physically get their hands on your USB stick can use (and you can password lock the OS) and that you can run from literally almost any PC with USB ports. Including public machines in libraries and, probably, school laptops.

If you’re a kid who needs privacy, someone in trouble who just needs their own machine to play and talk to people on, somebody who doesn’t have the money to get your own computer, etc etc etc, do this. Actually do this even if you do have your own computer. There is literally no reason to not have a little backup system on a thumb drive that you can use anytime. If your main computer starts acting up or gets fucked over by an update or something? Just plug in your thumb drive and use your computer from your handy-dandy mini Ubuntu installation.

[rosysugarr]

Here is a guide on how to create a USB linux drive with persistent storage from Windows using a simple little program called Rufus.

[someemochick]

[fishingscam]

op didn’t add a link so here’s a link to his patreon where all of his minis are free to download please support him if you can

[everythingispirates]

"our flag means death what we do in the shadows and good omens should be the new superwholock" WRONG our flag means death black sails and pirates of the caribbean should be the new superwholock except now they're all pirate media with canonically queer people in them. like I cannot BELIEVE how soon you people forgot that jack sparrow is literally canonically gay divorced

[everythingispirates]

like okay to elaborate on this obviously they couldn't go super explicit because this was disney in 2003, but in the original idea for the film jack and captain barbossa were like. confirmed as having been in a relationship and while a lot of it was obviously cut what you need to know about the original pirates of the caribbean set was that it was like. almost lawless so some of that did make it through to the film like for example this line

and just in how the two of them interact with each other like in this shot for example

and we see more of this in the later movies like this bit in at world's end

and this bit in on stranger tides

sorry for the long post I'm just very passionate about this and literally no one talks about this for some reason. like my darling tumblerinas gay pirates have been real since 2003

[lacertae-dreamscape]

[handern]

@curiousstrawberry how does it feel to be this hilarious

[wastelesscrafts]

Visible Mending

Introduction:

Visible mending is a decorative way to fix up an item. Instead of trying to make your mend as invisible as possible, the idea is to make it part of the garment's design.

Visual mending is not a single technique: it's more of a mindset. If you've got an item you love, it deserves to be mended, and if you're going to put that love into stitches, why not show them off?

That being said, there are some specific techniques that are popular with visible menders. Let's take a look!

Sashiko:

Sashiko is a type of traditional Japanese embroidery that is used to both decorate and reinforce fabric. In visible mending, sashiko is often used to cover up holes with patches or to reinforce thinning fabric. This technique uses a variation on the running stitch.

(Image source)

Some resources on sashiko:

SashiCo on YouTube: sashiko livestreams and information on the cultural aspect of sashiko.

Written tutorial by Upcycle Stitches.

Free sashiko templates by TheSpruceCrafts.

Fixing jeans with sashiko by Soluna Collective.

(Image source)

(Image source)

Embroidery:

Regular embroidery is also a popular technique to accentuate your mends. Check out my embroidery 101 post to learn how to get started. You can embroider patches, or use embroidery to hide or accentuate any stitches you've made to fix holes. Embroidery's also a great way to cover up stains.

(Image source)

(Image source)

Patches:

There are many ways to add patches to a garment. My tutorial on patches is a good place to start if you want to make custom-shaped patches to sew on top of your fabric. You can also sew your patch on the inside of your garment and have it peek out from beneath the hole you're trying to fix. Fun ideas for this are lace or superheroes.

(Image source)

(Source)

Darning:

Darning is a technique used to repair holes in fabric by using running stitches to weave extra fabric over the hole as to fill it up again. While traditionally darning is done in an invisible way by using the same colour of thread as your fabric, you can also use contrasting colours to accentuate your fix. Check out this written tutorial on darning by TheSpruceCrafts.

(Image source)

(Image source)

Conclusion:

Visible mending is a creative way to fix up your clothes and give them some personality at the same time.

You should be proud of the fact that you took the time and learned the necessary skills needed to mend your clothes! Show off what you did!

A fun side effect of wearing these obvious mends is that people will notice them. They'll remember your fixes the next time they're faced with a hole in their wardrobe, and it will make them more likely to try it for themselves.

These are just a few ways to visibly mend your garments. Want more inspiration? Check out Pinterest or r/Visiblemending on Reddit.

[seat-safety-switch]

For the last decade or so, I’ve been routinely attending a ride-on lawnmower race. I’ve always wanted to participate, but the high cost of used mowers is better spent on more practical vehicles, like literally anything else. Sometimes, though, the universe sends you a message. And in my case, that message came in the form of an awkward leg of a huge trade-in scam.

Picture, if you will, the humble redneck. They await the approach of big, fast domestic mowers. John Deeres, Cub Cadets, even weird modified Chinese stuff they looted from Aliexpress. There is jubilance, but that soon comes to an awkward hush. An unfamiliar engine note approaches.

My International 1480 combine harvester, all ten tons of it, is barrelling down the highway at a clip somewhere between “tepid” and “jaunty.” Even though I have shown up for a race, I am sandbagging a little bit, making sure that the bets get settled against my vehicle before I show them the might of a fully operational monster such as mine.

Technically, there is no violation. I had looked at the rulebook from every angle in the previous year: it has the correct number of wheels, the proper agricultural intent, and with precise work on the tiller, it can even (poorly) mow a suburban lawn. Is it modified? Oh yes, yes indeed, but I see the nitrous bottles poking out from the rows of Kubotas at the starting line.

And when I leave the starting line, it is a thing of beauty. At least for a few milliseconds. It seems that the wizards at International Harvester simply did not comprehend of a situation in which the frame of their combine would be launched into the air by means of one thousand eight hundred foot-pounds of supercharger-bolstered torque. I had erroneously believed that the loose soil of the rural community would let the wheels dip in, but now I am facing directly into the sky, having twelve o’ clocked hard on my wheelie, shooting flames from my exhaust and whirling vertical blades of death towards the grandstand.

It’s not about whether you win or lose. Sometimes it’s about how many pages you add to the rulebook.

[roguesquirrel]

finally an article from a gaming establishment that understands how to play this game

[adulthoodisokay]

please, you have to click this link because there’s audio of the writer HEWWOing and you have to listen to it

[nettlewildfairy]

I absolutely love that this is written by the same person who wrote “Everyone hates my big stupid horse in Red Dead Online. He is my friend” article

[the-ladyguinevere]

I am begging you to read the article

[an-alarming-number-of-bees]

This guy gets it.

[tastefullyoffensive]

[prismatic-bell]

HERE’S THE THING THOUGH

I used to work for a call center and I was doing a political survey and I called this number that was randomly generated for me and the way our system worked was voice-activated so when the other person said hello you’d get connected to them, so I just launch right into my “Harvard University and NPR blah blah blah” thing and then there’s this long pause and I think the person’s hung up even though I didn’t hear a click

And then I hear “you shouldn’t be able to call this number.”

So I apologize and go into the preset spiel about because we aren’t selling anything, etc. etc. and the answer I get is

“No, I know that. What I mean is that it should be impossible for you to call this number, and I need to know how you got it.”

I explain that it’s randomly generated and I’m very sorry for bothering him, and go to hang up. And before I can click terminate, I hear:

“Ma’am, this is a matter of national security.”

I accidentally called the director of the FBI.

My job got investigated because a computer randomly spit out a number to the Pentagon.

[kuroba101]

This is my new favourite story.

[therobotmonster]

When I was in college I got a job working for a company that manages major air-travel data. It was a temp gig working their out of date system while they moved over to a new one, since my knowing MS Dos apparently made me qualified.

There was no MS Dos involved. Instead, there was a proprietary type-based OS and an actually-uses-transistors refrigerator-sized computer with switches I had to trip at certain times during the night as I watched the data flow from six pm to six AM on Fridays and weekends. If things got stuck, I reset the server. 

The company handled everything from low-end data (hotel and car reservations) to flight plans and tower information. I was weighed every time I came in to make sure it was me. Areas of the building had retina scanners on doors. 

During training. they took us through all the procedures. Including the procedures for the red phone. There was, literally, a red phone on the shelf above my desk. “This is a holdover from the cold war.” They said. “It isn’t going to come up, but here’s the deal. In case of nuclear war or other nation-wide disaster, the phone will ring. Pick up the phone, state your name and station, and await instructions. Do whatever you are told.”

So my third night there, it’s around 2am and there’s a ringing sound. 

I look up, slowly. The Red phone is ringing.

So I reach out, I pick up the phone. I give my name and station number. And I hear every station head in the building do the exact same. One after another, voices giving names and numbers. Then silence for the space of two breaths. Silence broken by…

“Uh… Is Shantavia there?”

It turns out that every toll free, 1-900 or priority number has a corresponding local number that it routs to at its actual destination. Some poor teenage girl was trying to dial a friend of hers, mixed up the numbers, and got the atomic attack alert line for a major air-travel corporation’s command center in the mid-west United States.

There’s another pause, and the guys over in the main data room are cracking up. The overnight site head is saying “I think you have the wrong number, ma’am.” and I’m standing there having faced the specter of nuclear annihilation before I was old enough to legally drink.

The red phone never rang again while I was there, so the people doing my training were only slightly wrong in their estimation of how often the doomsday phone would ring. 

[arctic-hands]

Every time I try to find this story, I end up having to search google with a variety of terms that I’m sure have gotten me flagged by some watchlist, so I’m reblogging it again where I swear I’ve reblogged it before.

[voroxpete]

But none of these stories even come close to the best one of them all; a wrong number is how the NORAD Santa Tracker got started.

Seriously, this is legit.

In December 1955, Sears decided to run a Santa hotline.  Here’s the ad they posted.

Only problem is, they misprinted the number.  And the number they printed?  It went straight through to fucking NORAD.  This was in the middle of the Cold War, when early warning radar was the only thing keeping nuclear annihilation at bay.  NORAD was the front line.

And it wasn’t just any number at NORAD.  Oh no no no.

Terri remembers her dad had two phones on his desk, including a red one. “Only a four-star general at the Pentagon and my dad had the number,” she says.

“This was the ‘50s, this was the Cold War, and he would have been the first one to know if there was an attack on the United States,” Rick says.

The red phone rang one day in December 1955, and Shoup answered it, Pam says. “And then there was a small voice that just asked, ‘Is this Santa Claus?’ ”

His children remember Shoup as straight-laced and disciplined, and he was annoyed and upset by the call and thought it was a joke — but then, Terri says, the little voice started crying.

“And Dad realized that it wasn’t a joke,” her sister says. “So he talked to him, ho-ho-ho’d and asked if he had been a good boy and, ‘May I talk to your mother?’ And the mother got on and said, ‘You haven’t seen the paper yet? There’s a phone number to call Santa. It’s in the Sears ad.’ Dad looked it up, and there it was, his red phone number. And they had children calling one after another, so he put a couple of airmen on the phones to act like Santa Claus.”

“It got to be a big joke at the command center. You know, ‘The old man’s really flipped his lid this time. We’re answering Santa calls,’ ” Terri says.

And then, it got better.

“The airmen had this big glass board with the United States on it and Canada, and when airplanes would come in they would track them,” Pam says.

“And Christmas Eve of 1955, when Dad walked in, there was a drawing of a sleigh with eight reindeer coming over the North Pole,” Rick says.

“Dad said, ‘What is that?’ They say, ‘Colonel, we’re sorry. We were just making a joke. Do you want us to take that down?’ Dad looked at it for a while, and next thing you know, Dad had called the radio station and had said, ‘This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh.’ Well, the radio stations would call him like every hour and say, ‘Where’s Santa now?’ ” Terri says.

For real.

“And later in life he got letters from all over the world, people saying, ‘Thank you, Colonel,’ for having, you know, this sense of humor. And in his 90s, he would carry those letters around with him in a briefcase that had a lock on it like it was top-secret information,” she says. “You know, he was an important guy, but this is the thing he’s known for.”

“Yeah,” Rick [his son] says, “it’s probably the thing he was proudest of, too.”

So yeah.  I think that might be the best wrong number of all time.

Source:  http://www.npr.org/2014/12/19/371647099/norads-santa-tracker-began-with-a-typo-and-a-good-sport

[arty-ari]

No okay THAT is adorable and I’m queueing this for next December.

[batmanego]

im having feelings about the uffington white horse again

[batmanego]

so essentially there’s this cool horse drawn into the hills in england made out of chalk and it’s like 3,000 years old.

people carved trenches 3,000 years ago and filled them with chalk in the shape of a horse but what’s interesting is that if you fail to maintain the horse by adding new chalk regularly, it will disappear. for 3,000 years, we’ve been filling in chalk in this horse so it doesn’t disappear.

we’ll never know what the purpose of the horse was originally. we’ll never know if it had ritual or spiritual significance or if it was just art. but we do know that people maintained it then, and, even though the meaning of the horse has long been lost to time, we continue to maintain it now.

the people who made this horse are long dead, but they live through us still, don’t you think?

[batmanego]

couldn’t agree more we’re best friends now

[ltc-kilgore-deactivated20181027]

man yells at fish

[naturallyaspirated]

BEAUTIFUL 💙

[whitejenna]

I’m on my third watch through and tears are streaming down my face. You must turn the sound on.

[naamahdarling]

*uncontrollable sobbing laughter*

it just keeps getting funnier

[ghostlyss]

The pinnacle is when he points angrily at the fish and doesn’t say anything. You just really FEEL the frustration

[condensed-theorem-shop]

One of the most bizarrely cool people I’ve ever met was an oral surgeon who treated me after a ridiculous accident (that’s another story), Dr. Z.

Dr. Z. was, easily, the best and most competent doctor or dentist I’ve ever encountered – and after that accident, I encountered quite a number. He came stunningly highly recommended, had an excellent record, and the most calming bedside manner I’ve ever seen.

That last wasn’t the sweet gentle caretaking sort of manner, which some nurses have but you wouldn’t expect to see in a surgeon. No; when Dr. Z. told me that one of my broken molars was too badly damaged to save, and I (being seventeen and still moderately in shock) broke down crying, he stared at me incredulously and said, in a tone of utter bemusement, “But – I am very good.”

I stopped crying on the spot. In the last twenty-four hours or so of one doctor after another, no one had said anything that reassuring to me. He clearly just knew his own competence so well that the idea of someone being scared anyway was literally incomprehensible to him. What more could I possibly ask for?

(He was right. The procedure was very extended, because the tooth that needed to be removed was in bits, but there was zero pain at any point. And, as he promised, my teeth were so close together that they shifted to fill the gap to where there genuinely is none anymore, it’s just a little easier to floss on that side.)

But Dr. Z.’s insane competence wasn’t just limited to oral surgery.

When I met Dr. Z., he, like most doctors I’ve had, asked me if I was in college, and where, and what I was studying. When I say “math,” most doctors respond with “oh, wow, good for you” or possibly “what do you want to do with that after college?”

Dr. Z. wanted to know what kind of math.

I gave him the thirty-second layman’s summary that I give people who are foolish enough to ask that. He responded with “oh, you mean–” and the correct technical terms. I confirmed that was indeed what I meant (and keep in mind, this was upper-division college math, you don’t take this unless you’re a math major). He asked cogent follow-up questions, and there ensued ten or so minutes of what I’d call “small talk” except for how it was an intensely technical mathematical discussion.

He didn’t, as far as I can tell, have any kind of formal math background. He just … knew stuff.

I was a competitive fencer at this point in time, so when he asked if I had any questions about the surgery that would be necessary, I asked him if I’d be okay to fence while I had my jaw wired shut, or if it would interfere with breathing.

“Fencing?” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “like swordfighting,” because this is another conversation I got to have a lot. (People assume they’ve misheard you, or occasionally they think you mean building fences.)

“Which weapon?”

“Uh. Foil.”

“No, it won’t be safe,” and he went off into an explanation of why.

Turns out, he was also a serious fencer – and, when I mentioned my fencing coach, an old friend of his. (I asked my fencing coach later, and, oh yes, Dr. Z., a good friend of mine, excellent fencer.) (My coach was French. Dr. Z. was Israeli. I never saw Dr. Z. around the club or anything. I have no idea how they knew each other.)

So this was weird enough that later, when I was home, I looked Dr. Z. up on Yelp. His reviews were stellar, of course, but that wasn’t the weird thing.

The weird thing was that the reviews were full of people – professionals in lots of different fields – saying the same thing: I went to Dr. Z. for oral surgery, and he asked me about what I did, and it turned out he knew all about my field and had a competent and educated discussion with me about the obscure technical details of such-and-such.

All sorts of different fields, saying this. Lawyers. Businessmen. Musicians.

As far as I can tell, it’s not that I just happened to be pursuing the two fields he had a serious amateur interest in – he just seemed to be extremely good at literally everything.

I have no explanation for this. Possibly he sold his soul to the devil.

He did a damn good job on my surgery.

[saywhatjessie]

#op your oral surgeon is an immortal

[kyraneko]

Some god is slumming it on Earth with maxed-out stats helping people and his dive bar of choice is oral surgery.

[realfakeeggs]

Treasure Planet concept art.

[gleonardrainschedule-deactivate]

SUPER underappreciated film

[tomb-of-madeline]

A comic about a vampire and a friend

[burdenofgravity]

Um? I love this.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

something about the wave of Alfred Molina thirst makes me think of that "Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny" essay. shan't elaborate right now but give me a moment.

[pcklesthings]

I'm sorry, the what essay?

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

so glad you asked

it was this article, "We All Simp for Alfred Molina" by Chingy Nea, that made me think of it, particularly this paragraph that one assumes the Nea must have composed whilst drooling like a cartoon wolf:

But gravity isn’t all Molina brings to the role [of Doc Ock]; he carries with him a stunning degree of raw sexual magnetism. As a larger man, Molina really carries his massive appendages, moves deliberately with a menacing cool and delivers one-liners in a sultry arch tone. The physicality of the role also plays into it with Octavius in an open trench coat with his titties out and with a bit of his paunch hanging over the metal tentacle corset around his waist, letting us really take in the beauty of his body.

it's Nea's appreciation for Molina's physicality, specifically the fond attention drawn to his visible paunch, that made me think of R.S. Benedict's essay "Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny." it's a good read but also a long one, so I'll summarize: Benedict posits that current standards of American attractiveness stem from post-9/11 anxiety - "When a nation feels threatened, it gets swole," she writes - and has created a national mentality of bodies as commodities to be honed to perfection without indulging in any of the pleasure a body can bring, a vessel disjointed from any sense of self and meant only to be looked at with awe.

she opens particularly by noting the very particular brand of sexless-ness that pervades mainstream media, leading to action heroes whose beautiful faces and implausibly sculpted muscles are attractive in theory but also seem to exist in a world apart from anything like genuine sensuality. their bodies are inhuman in their perfection, and this comes at the cost of doing anything as human as fucking. to quote:

In the films of the Eighties and Nineties, leading actors were good looking, yes, but still human. Kurt Russel’s Snake Plissken was a hunk, but in shirtless scenes his abs have no definition. Bruce Willis was handsome, but he’s more muscular now than he was in the Nineties, when he was routinely branded a bona fide sex symbol. And when Isabella Rosselini strips in Blue Velvet, her skin is pale and her body is soft. She looks vulnerable and real.

Benedict mostly speculates about the neutered nature of DC and Marvel's movie characters, but they're hardly the only blockbusters falling into this trend. Alison Wilmore's "Why Doesn't The Rock Get to Make Out More Onscreen?" calls attention to this with a particular focus on Disney's new Jungle Cruise movie, describing Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt's roles as "characters who are to Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen as Funko Pops are to people," with their inevitable kiss playing out "as though they’re dolls whose heads are being smashed together by a child enacting a rudimentary idea of passion."

similarly to Benedict's point, Wilmore notes that "There’s a striking divide between the body that Johnson is so famous for and the characters who are supposed to inhabit it... his characters rarely if ever seem to take pleasure in this physicality beyond its capacity to intimidate and serve as a spectacle."

and by now you're probably saying okay Makenzie that's swell, but what the fuck does this have to do with people thirsting over Alfred Molina? well, look at him.

take in the tits and paunch Nea loves so much, and compare Molina's body with the kind that have dominated the biggest movies of the last decade or so, since the MCU set the tone for the future of the superhero genre. Quoth Benedict again:

Actors are more physically perfect than ever: impossibly lean, shockingly muscular, with magnificently coiffed hair, high cheekbones, impeccable surgical enhancements, and flawless skin, all displayed in form-fitting superhero costumes with the obligatory shirtless scene thrown in to show off shredded abs and rippling pecs. And this isn’t just the lead and the love interest: supporting characters look this way too, and even villains (frequently clad in monstrous makeup) are still played by conventionally attractive performers. Even background extras are good-looking, or at least inoffensively bland.

Molina's Doc Ock isn't bland; he has character in the form of features that are, increasingly, written off as too ugly or undesirable for film. I think the reason people may be reacting so strongly to him nearly two decades after the movie's release is that a pretty-normal looking body has now become a spectacle unto itself, by virtue of being so normal.

the current crop of superhero stars are exercised, waxed, dieted, dehydrated, and quite probably steroided into something the average person could never achieve on their own, a body that's fun to look at but is ultimately alien to anything most people will ever experience. whereas what we're looking at with Alfred Molina's Doc Ock is something like a body that many people actually have, a body that many people have known and loved, a body that, frankly, many people have had sex with - certainly more than have ever had sex with, say, Chris Evans' Steve Rogers all hairless and shiny fresh out of getting shot up with super soldier serum.

it's a sexy body because it's a palpably human body, in a genre that increasingly shuns exactly that.

plus, you know, those are just some nice tits.

[oodnessharpiesandfireflies]

Both of these articles are worth a read, but this post sums them both up pretty nicely.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

got my first positive review lads :)

[afloweroutofstone]

This movie has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. A friend and I are about to investigate ourselves. Will report back on whether or not the Cage renaissance continues

[afloweroutofstone]

I don’t even have a witty retort, “Pig” is honestly just really good

[masterqifrey]

weathering with you (2010) dir. makoto shinkai

[girlmuppet]

Do any of u have decent recipes that are like 5 ingredients (not including spices) and take 45 mins or less to prepare i gotta stop eating sandwiches for dinner

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

yeah hang on

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

ignore the title of this google doc because it's a long story but it's a really solid recipe for southwest chicken alfredo

this is a vegetarian potato curry recipe that's about 75% spices; once you get the potatoes in there you can really do whatever you want with it

this is literally just pasta, broccoli, and cheese babey and you can live off that shit for DAYS it makes such a big portion

bro this spinach/pesto/3 cheese flatbread is so fucking tasty bro

also you can make the flatbread yourself it's super quick!!

oh hey I'm eating this white chickpea chili right now, much like the curry it's mostly spices and you can do p much do whatever you want with it

don't let the name fool you these potatoes are delicious any time. not just breakfast.

this is slightly more than five ingredient when you add them together but if you have time and really wanna fuckin treat yourself I recommend these chicken strips + this cornbread + either these potatoes or these buttered veggies on the side.

[serotoninsuggestion]

an author i love just tweeted about how “big joy and small joy are the same” and how she was just as content the other night eating chocolate and cuddling her dog as she was on her Big Trip to new york and honestly. i think that’s it. this morning i was listening to an audiobook while baking shortbread in my joggers and i realised i really didn’t care what Big Things happened in my future as long as i could keep baking and reading at the weekend and maybe that is the kind of bar we have to set to guard ourselves against disappointment. just appreciate and cherish the mundane stuff and see everything else as a bonus.

[serotoninsuggestion]

found it - she was replying to this thread that starts “unpopular opinion: i don’t think your life has to have a purpose, or you a grand ambition; i think it’s okay to just wander through life finding interesting things until you die” and i for one think that’s fucking brilliant