Vasse's Trinkets and Curiosities

A 30-something girl, pharmacist, artist, anime and internet addict. Anything else?

[marithlizard]

It's been a while since I said "this person wins the internet", but today it is merited.

(via bsky)

(The classic XKCD comic)

[fox-bright]

Swarovski can continue to fuck off.

In 2021, Swarovski (the company that makes the very sparkly crystals you see in certain jewelry, on figure-skaters' twinkliest outfits, on red carpet dresses), decided they didn't want the grubby fingers of small-time jewelers, clothing designers and costumers and crafters on their shiny beads and rhinestones anymore. They decided to limit their sales to "luxury" and couture creators, not girls who sell stuff on Etsy. The tenor of their press release on the subject was snide and insulting. Resellers (like your favorite bead shop) would no longer be allowed to carry their product; the average Jane on the street would not be able to purchase them. You could only get them if you had an authorized business agreement that bound you to very strict brand behavior. And those of us who still had good stock of the crystals would no longer be "permitted" to use the brand's name in our listings for sale.

Every bead shop and craft supply place and many, many small clothing makers--wedding shops, prom and dancing dress suppliers, the sort of salt of the Earth mom and pop time machines of shops that are the backbone of the field--scrambled to find something that could replace them. The last of the stock dwindled quickly, all of us grabbing what we could get while there was any chance of it, and then it was gone and we no longer had any access.

I was Big Pissed about it at the time. It was just so goddamn stuck-up, when wholesalers and indie jewelers had made them so much money, when some people I knew--when *I!*--had been brand-loyal for decades. But with no recourse, everyone pivoted fairly quickly, most of us to Preciosa Crystals. Those are Czech, quite sparkly, and considerably less expensive than Swarovski. The faceting method they use is different, but not worse; any differences are hardly noticeable when you're seeing them as a hundred pinpoints of light.

Well, out of nowhere, Swarovski just dropped this: https://www.harmanbeads.com/swarovski-brand-policy-update

"Effective June 1, 2026, Swarovski updated the distribution and brand usage policies introduced in 2021. Businesses may now purchase Swarovski Crystals without signing a Brand Control Agreement, and Authorized Distribution Partners may once again sell Swarovski Crystals to resellers, including bead stores and online retailers. Businesses may also use the Swarovski brand name when following Swarovski’s Proper Use Guidelines. Designers, manufacturers, artists, brands, retailers, and resellers are now eligible to purchase Swarovski Crystals through authorized distribution channels."

They want us back. A lot of the companies who could have kept a brand relationship with them also have swapped to Preciosa, over the last half-decade, in solidarity with indie creators and out of a sour awareness that it could be them, next. And it doesn't hurt that Preciosa was able to expand their line quite a bit now that everyone who wanted sparkle had no choice but to go to them.

And I'm not seeing nearly anyone who intends to return. The feeling is, "Y'all told us to fuck off! Off we fucked! And now, that's what you can do, too!" I'm seeing a lot of "How many of us did you stab in the back?" comments from the people whose money they're hoping to attract.

And personally I'm sitting over here all rubby hands, mean snickering, because they really thought they were going to be able to outclimb the people who actually provided all their profits, and now here they are, hat in hand.

[marsoid]

PRIDE MONTH SUMMER DROP COMING SOON

🩸 deadend.club 🩸

[sacred-portal]

[cargopantsman]

[nojamnojelly]

[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: 2 days 5 hours

[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: 2 days 5 hours

[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: 2 days 6 hours

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

🫶

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[catchyvideos]

OP theaverycottage on TikTok ♡

[thoughtfulfangirling]

Which of these headcanons I've adopted from Doc are you taking to the grave with you, knuckles white around it's correctness?

Michiru is a hyper rich girl while Haruka comes from poverty

Haruka and Michiru posed as high school students in S3 to investigate but aren't

Mamoru is gay and Usagi is better off with lady Seiya

Minako Aino is a competent trickster who at times is a very grudging senshi

Roy Mustang is super OP w/ alchemy; has 0 muscles, knocked over by a strong wind

Hawkeye would kill Roy herself before letting him be tortured to death

Tracer is an ADHD, totally butch butch lesbian

Mercy is Jewish and happily married to Pharah

You missed the one *I* adopted! (tell me in tags!)

Remaining time: 3 days 22 hours

@docholligay

[trekinist]

> The Stalker says he can take me to the Zone

> I ask if the Zone is creepy or wet

> He doesn't understand

> I light a cigarette and make my speech about what constitutes something being creepy or wet

> He does not laugh and says "The Zone demands respect"

> it's creepy AND wet

[monamoni]

104 skydivers, 20 nations and one beautiful world record breaking moment

[plothooksinc]

For the people in the notes, this is not AI. A simple search online will find it on news sites.

[brennacedria]

A link to a news report for quick reference

[partywithponies]

Strange racists and homophobes on the internet seem to have access to an alternate way cooler version of TV than me. "every white character on TV is in an interracial relationship" "every show has a gay couple in it" "main characters keep having to secretly be bisexual and nonbinary" "every show has gratuitous full frontal nudity" like damn promise?? What channel???

[urlocalpyshcopan]

as a black gay person real like where y'all be finding this stuff pass the name

[brainsforbabyjesus]

for real though, those DO NOT WATCH OR YOU'LL CORRUPT YOUR CHILDREN lists put out by conservative christian family groups is where I find all the stellar tv shows. Like, shit I didn't know half of those existed, thanks for finding them for me, gonna go watch 30 hours of gay tv now!

[infamousbrad]

I think I know how this works.

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

Same as the journalists describing Black Rock City as all naked. Same as the right-wing religious culture warriors describing television as entirely mixed-race and gender non-conforming. Not because it's even vaguely true, we know that, but because they haven't gotten over their discomfort over the last one by the time the next one comes along. The anger, not the stimulus, is the part that's continuous, so their mind lies to them that it's "all" the thing they can't get over.

[kagedtiger]

Similar effect for the presence/proportion of women in things, by the way: https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/how-17-equals-496-the-amazing-multiplying-women.htm

[doodleoo]

what you learn from hobbies:

consistent practice opens up whole worlds of skill that you couldn't imagine

making mistakes in the process of learning is not only natural, it is also essential

activities that you enjoy can give you more energy back than you spent on them

wow everything is so expensive

[doodleoo]

my hands hurt

[emoticonhub]

Emoticon Generator

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[sams-resources]

꒰ঌᐢ.ˬ.ᐢ໒꒱

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[pseudomantis]

[friendlyfrankenstein]

needle/pin sharpener.

no really, squeeze it. Does it feel like it’s got sand in it? is’s sharpening sand. Stab the tip of your needle into it back and forth and it’ll help put a sharp edge back on a pin or needle that’s been blunted by use, or has a little bit of rust on it. It can’t fix anything worse then a little of either, and won’t work on something REALLY blunted, but its a lifesaver.

[anais-ninja-bitch]

also it is a pepper

[vinceaddams]

It's not a pepper and it's not for sharpening!!

It may seem like it should be a pepper, since that would go better with the flavour of a tomato (and the mass produced modern ones are admittedly more pepper shaped), but it is and has always been a strawberry. Here are some antique emery strawberries, which are much more strawberry shaped, and some of them have seeds.

(source)

(source)

(Home Needlework Magazine, 1899)

And it's for cleaning needles, not sharpening them. I can't imagine how jamming a blunt needle point around in a bunch of loose grit could possibly sharpen it in any significant way, and all the historical sources I've seen only talk about cleaning.

"Every sewer's work basket or work box should contain an emery bag, as shown in Fig. 2, through which to push a needle when it becomes rough, squeaks, or sticks in the material. An emery bag is usually shaped like a strawberry and consists of a rough denim bag filled with emery powder, which is a very hard material used for polishing metals. Such a bag may be purchased for 5 or 10 cents in any store that sells sewing materials. Needles often become rusted from the perspiration of the hands or from being left in damp places. The beginner may use a small emery bag to remove rust; or, a small piece of emery paper may be used instead."

-Woman's Institute Reference Library, 1916.

"Use an emery whenever your needle does not slip through the cloth easily."

-The Improvement of Educational Administration in Massachusetts, 1916.

"An emery bag is inexpensive and is useful to keep needles polished and smooth. If the hands perspire and it is difficult to push the needle through the cloth, running the needle through the emery will relieve the condition."

-Boys' and Girls' Clothing Club, 1915.

"It was very hot to sit and sew. The needle would get sticky in spite of all the little emery strawberry could give it, and Beth's fingers had never felt so clumsy and uncomfortable."

-The Unitarian Register, 1908.

"She polished her needles to nothing, pushing them in and out of the emery strawberry, but they always squeaked."

-Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, 1910.

This patent from 1873 mentions an emery slab for sharpening pins, which is quite different from a cushion, and which sounds like it actually would work for sharpening.

"C is a slab of emery or other sharp and fine grit, for sharpening needles or pins"

Then later down the page it also says

"E is an emery cushion, secured in the body of the holder A, and is used for polishing needles and keeping them smooth."

So. Strawberry for cleaning. Not pepper for sharpening.

[elodieunderglass]

Gentle reminder - modern sewing tools are made from treated or plated metal, or stainless steel. In terms of human civilisation, this is a wild advance of technology. Needles are some of our oldest tools; rust was formerly ubiquitous, and attacked every form of everyday metal. A rusty needle tears fabric, or worse, stains it. The luxury and technology of rustproof needles and pins - forgotten in a few generations of human memory - and yet it is remembered in the strawberry. Memory is stored in the strawberry!

[hollyevolving]

memory is stored in the emery

[prokopetz]

It's actually a bit surprising to me that we haven't seen contemporary meta brainfuck indie games do more than they have with 1990s point and click adventure games' penchant for developer-intended softlocks. That feels like something you could very easily spin as Saying Something.

[prokopetz]

Honestly, having grown up with this bullshit is probably a big part of the reason I'm fascinated with player-hostile game design. Giving a puzzle three different solutions with fully voiced and animated reactions to each, except two of those solutions render the game unwinnable in ways that won't become apparent until hours later is a level of "fuck you" that most modern games with pretensions of player-hostility can only dream of!

[prokopetz]

@lunchm34t replied:

what adventure games softlock you like that?

I'm usually loathe to suggest TV Tropes as a resource, but given that only a person who's entirely unacquainted with the genre would be asking that question, a primer is probably warranted. Check out the Unwinnable By Design article and read the preamble for context on the types of softlocks we're discussing, then hit either the "Sierra" or "Infocom" links (yes, those two publishers each have their own dedicated sections!), pop open the "Cruel" tab, and get ready to read some stuff that makes you mad.

[sd-d0-l1y]

There really is only one correct way to play some of these games huh.

[prokopetz]

A critical piece of context that a lot of modern gamers completely miss is that Douglas Adams' adventure games are works of parody not only in terms of their narratives, but also in the sense that they're rather vicious parodies of adventure games as a genre. Each of their absurdly obtuse puzzles is lampooning some puzzle design trope or set of tropes that was legitimately commonplace at the time they were made, and many of the really nasty bits are crafted specifically to piss off experienced adventure game fans who otherwise wouldn't get caught out by that sort of thing. They're outliers in the genre only in the sense that they're putting forth extra effort to be annoying about it – most games of the type pull the exact same shit entirely without remark!

[prokopetz]

(Honestly, the player-hostility of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tends to be tremendously overstated owing to a combination of effective marketing and the fact that it's the only adventure game from that era that any significant number of current-gen gamers have ever actually played. In terms of sheer fuckery it's considerably friendlier than stuff like, say, Codename: ICEMAN.)

[dana-ategina]

were these like, rented out blockbuster-style and the devs got a cut out of said rent, or

[prokopetz]

It helps to understand that point and click adventure games are one of the first genres the Git Gud really fixated on, and a lot of these early design trends revolved around catering to that crowd. It only got reframed as a genre for filthy casuals in the wake of a demographic shift in the mid 1990s that saw the genre's player base skewing strongly female; it's practically the only example of a video game genre's reputation flipping directly from "hardcore" to "casual", and one of the most striking illustrations of the fact that which kinds of games are considered "real" games is more about identity politics than mechanics.

[gamerwoman3d]

Yep. I was there, Gandalf.

I beat Shadowgate and Final Fantasy and boys were more likely to accept me as a man/one of them/an exception, rather than accept the idea that the game "wasn't hardcore." But that's when I was apparently the only assigned-f-at-birth gamer on the planet. I was treated like a rarity.

But when the captain of the cheerleading squad started playing Heretic, that's about the time the discussion of whether games were hardcore enough came up.

To be fair, I do not remember beating Kings Quest / Perils of Rosella. I saved the game as Rosella was falling down some stairs and the reload would start with her falling and end with her dying.

[ndsoda]

“You’re not Hikaru, are you?”