so many. stupid fucking people. smugly wrong. the term . "all art is political". does not mean. every artist puts political intent into their work. no. the guy drawing dicks on the subway did not intend any deep message by it. HOWEVER. all art. IS political. he chose to draw that dick. for a reason. society shaped what he finds funny. what he finds shocking. the fact he chose to draw a dick at all says something about his society. actually, the fact it is a dick and not a pussy is itself political. we are all. ALL. shaped by our environments. in an alternate universe a woman is drawing a vulva on the wall. and shes saying "TCH! this isnt political. stupid liberals". all art. has political CONTEXT. that is a more specific way to phrase it. because we live in a society. who has access to art? where is the art located? who is the artist? why did they draw that in that specific location. what led to them even having the sharpie they used to draw the dick to begin with. their society shaped their tools! their society shaped their choice of subject! their society shaped the location of their art! but these people are too stupid to understand this. so theyll continue pretending that they are not shaped by their political environment. SAD!

out of all the posts ive made that have blown up this has to be the most fascinating Given how i was too drunk to remember how to form full sentences. but was i wrong? no.

Can someone who understands psychology explain why this makes someone "rude"?

Phatic discourse, a subset of affiliative signaling.

When Co-workers do things like ask about weekend plans, chat about non-work topics, eat lunch in the same room, they are--subconsciously--reaffirming that they are part of a cooperative (or, minimally, non-antagonistic) social group.

The other primates cement social bonds by grooming each other; we do it by making small talk.

If they solicit your participation in these rituals, and you repeatedly refuse those bids, you are marking yourself out as, at best, an outsider to the group, and thus potentially antagonistic.

This is all happening on the monkey-brain level; they have no idea what they're doing or how they are interpreting your response, so there's no way to clear up the misunderstanding.

To the ape sleeping in your co-worker's DNA, either you are part of the grooming circle, or you are an outsider who, for all it knows, may be coming to steal all the bananas.

Even if you would prefer not to socialize with your co-workers, it's generally worth it to set aside 5 minutes a couple times a week for phatic communication. You don't have to answer your co-workers' affiliative signals every time, but it's less trouble in the long run if you respond to a few of them.

if you are the type of person who really just wants to be left alone to do their work in quiet: it is actually easier to achieve this as part of the in-group. when you enter a new space, in this case, a job, make it your GOAL to make everyone Know Who You Are. introduce yourself to everyone you meet. literally everyone. "hi I'm Jack I'm New." this helps burst the awkward bubble. you are now one of the monkeys.

at some point, either in response to an invitation, or just in the natural course of conversation, you can add in that you are a "quiet type" who "needs their silence" or what have you. customize to your personal needs. i find it helpful to imagine a well dressed elderly woman describing the sort of peace she needs to manifest.

roughly once a week if you see a group of people chatting, engage with them. keep it pleasant. it can be superficial. word will travel that you are Nice and Quiet and Not The Chatty Type protecting you from group lunches etc. if you have an office with a door that you keep closed a lot, putting up any kind of decor will also send positive signals.

humans are monkeys! for better or worse!

Pro tip: try to make a note (write it down if you have to) about some inconsequential thing that your coworker mentions so you can ask about it later. Kids and pets are great for This. As are hobbies. One guy in my office zoom called in from his house and I saw he had an arcade game in his office so I asked him about it later and he lit up like a Christmas tree. Another coworker has a pet pig and I ask every couple months how the pig is doing. This is a great strategy for pivoting conversation away from you and will make them think you are the friendliest monkey in the pod.

The grooming circle also serves a very practical purpose. Getting to know each other - even superficially but regularly - makes people more likely to feel comfortable asking for something they need, more likely to say yes, and more likely to trust each other with sensitive information. All of this makes people better fellow human beings to each other.

It means my coworker is more likely to feel safe enough to tell me "Can you take over my shift tomorrow?" and I'm more likely to say "yes" even when I don't want to, because I care about his well being and he also takes over shifts for me when he doesn't want to.

It means my coworker is more likely to ask me for help if they experience sexual harassment at work, or if they think they're being underpaid, or if they're actually very lonely and need someone, anyone, to go to their Mom's funeral with them.

And maybe this ritual of trust-building feels unnecessary to you. Maybe you would do all these things for random strangers, but your coworkers won't know that unless they get to know you a little, so they won't know that they can ask you for help.

#take part in the grooming. become one of the ingroup. band together to demand more bananas from your zookeeper aka your boss#monkey together strong or something

YES. Unionize your monkey grooming circle.

also, if your fellow monkeys are anxious you might steal their bananas? give them bananas instead. i.e., bring food to work. baked goods work great. they can be store bought; you don't need to go to a lot of effort. bring a box of grocery store brownies or whatever to work every so often and people will LOVE you for literally zero effort. everyone loves the coworker who gives them free food.

refseek.com

www.worldcat.org/

link.springer.com

http://bioline.org.br/

repec.org

science.gov

pdfdrive.com

Worldcat is my bestie and my one true love!! Not only does it tell you what library a book is at, but it also price compares different used book sites against each other for easy view! It's how I got Tarot For the Master for $10!!

Oh, and since I have your attention: z-library (books and textbooks) and sci-hub (gatekept scientific journal articles.) I just ripped a textbook for class off z-library and snatched a required reading from sci-hub. Life is good and education should be accessible at every stage and station of life.

information wants to be free

The thing is, even if you were lucky and your parents taught you how to clean, they probably didn't teach you how to clean the stuff you clean stuff with, like brushes, mops, sponges, rags, and so on. Or how to clean your cleaning appliances, like a dish washer, clothes washing machine, and clothes dryer and its ducts (if you have a ducted dryer), or a carpet cleaner, vacuum, Or how to clean up clean messes, like spilled bleach or detergent.

My parents threw away all of these things (even the vacuum cleaners and the dryer) when they got too dirty to function, because no one even told them THAT they could be cleaned. Cost them thousands of dollars over the years.

All I'm saying is that cleaning is not intuitive, and not knowing how to clean is not a moral failing, but it is something you can learn.

I'm going to reblog this post with resources for learning how to clean things and how to clean cleaning things (I'm not at my desk at the moment). If you have any favorites, please feel free to add them in too!

I like this video because it does a great job of introducing the basic foundations of house cleaning (and because he doesn't use bleach, which is a common allergy in addition to being awful to inhale). He also talks a little about how to clean a vacuum. And why you shouldn't put grease from your pots and pans down the sink drain. I also love that he mentions that different houses and different people have different needs and different versions of what clean and cleaning looks like.

He doesn't mention though that the toilet seat comes off. I take my toilet seat off to clean under the hinges and clean the seat more thoroughly once a quarter.

This is another video from the same guy about cleaning and depression. This advice, especially at the beginning, can feel really really difficult and oppressive to hear. However, I find that it's generally pretty solid. But I'm autistic and so is he, so that gets a massive Your Mileage May Vary stamp on it.

I have a favorite part of this video. It's from 10:52 to 12:36. I think we could all use to hear that. There's a HEFTY pause after that one. I promise the narration does come back.

I'm also going to recommend KC Davis' book "How To Keep House While Drowning"

This is a pair of videos about how to correctly load and use a dish washer.

The first one is a quick 1 minute 30 second overview on loading. I can't find the exact video I'm looking for, so consider this a substitute for that. If I can find the one I'm looking for, I'll swap it in.

The second is a half hour deep dive on dishwashers and detergents. The short form of that is you shouldn't need to pre-rinse anything, detergent pods are overpriced and can cause problems, some dishwashers have a filter in the bottom that needs to be cleaned (but most don't), run your sink until the water is HOT before starting your dish washer, and put a little detergent in the pre-rinse dispenser when you're washing extra dirty dishes (or on the inside of the door if your dishwasher doesn't have a pre-rinse dispenser).

Here's a blog post about scrubbing brushes and how to clean them.

And a video for all cleaning tools, including scrub brushes. This video does use bleach. I'll try to find some alternatives to that.

How to clean a front load washer (with bleach). This should be done monthly or every time you wash really soiled clothes.

How to clean a top loader (without the removable agitator thing). This should be done every 1-3 months depending on you unit, or every time you wash really soiled clothes.

How to clean a top loader (with the removable agitator thing). This should be done every month, or every time you wash really soiled clothes.

This video is for pet owners.

These carpet brushes are a LIFE SAVER if you have dogs. This thing allows me to go from vacuuming about 4 square feet before my vacuum is full to vacuuming half the living room (I don't vacuum often enough. You should vacuum weekly, and I just can't.). I have to unclog the vacuum less often. It fluffs up some of the flat spots in the carpet. And I also use the brush to shampoo my rugs in the spring.

A spot cleaner (or a carpet cleaner with a spot cleaner attachment) is another life saver, ESPECIALLY if you can afford to splurge on a heated one. I see them at Goodwill or at yard sales occasionally, and they're worth picking up. The shark one in the video is great too.

This channel is gold. There's tutorials for cleaning EVERYTHING on there. Just go subscribe!

Gonna throw another potential resource at the end of this very long list, which may be potentially helpful for others like me who loathe videos. It's... the weirdest thing that has genuinely been helpful to me in housekeeping. Absolutely full of useful advice, and bizarrely still relevant in large part. (Though, caveat, research ANYTHING to do with chemicals or cleaning products more complicated than vinegar + lemon + water for modern information.)

It's America's Housekeeping Book (1941). Available for free download on the Internet Archive. (Large PDF file at the link here).

The LISTS y'all. The step by step lists. The emphasis on efficiency and arranging spaces for the least resistance possible. The basic concept of "take a tray or basket into a room when you are tidying up so you can put things that belong elsewhere on it and take them out LATER in ONE GO".

My ADHD-having ass could cry.

ppl are so annoying “you can’t paint ur bedroom pink you’re an adult” i did not spend my entire life waiting to grow up and control my life to paint my bedroom beige

I had a sales woman in furniture store try and tell me not to buy a hot bubblegum pink loveseat because she wanted me to “think about the future”

Bitch, I am thinking about the future. I already got a hot bubblegum pink couch at home and now I need a loveseat to go with it.

when I first bought my house, I announced my decision to paint my bedroom purple. I had wanted a purple bedroom for thirty damn years, you fucking bet I was gonna have one now. My friends decided, for some reason, that I meant what one of them referred to as “14 year old girl purple” (through what’s wrong with the colors a 14 year old girl chooses, I don’t know, even if they’re not what I want as an adult). They didn’t believe me until they saw the color on the actual wall, even thought they helped me pick out paints. My mother, meanwhile, decided to get worried that if I painted my bedroom a “dark purple”, it would be “depressing”. As if, with an entire house to live in, I would spend all my time in the bedroom, which I wanted to be dark because I would be sleeping in there. In the damn dark.

I had like one, maybe two friends who were all like FUCK YEAH YOU PAINT IT WHATEVER COLOR YOU WANT, PURPLE BEDROOMS ARE AWESOME.

But when they actualy saw the finished bedroom, every single one of them was like, “Oh yeah, that’s really pretty.” (Well, the ones who supported me from the beginning were more like WOOHOO.)

And the moral of the story is: Fuck ‘em, please yourself. Either they’ll come around, or you can safely ignore every question of taste they opine about for the rest of time.

This applies to other adulting activities, too. When I was a kid, I decided that I wanted to have a wedding cake made of doughnuts. When I got older, I figured that I would be “mature” about it and get a traditional cake, which the older adults approved of. Now that I’m 25 and facing the possibility of actual marriage in the near future, I’m just like “marriage is a social construct but it comes with tax & insurance benefits, so just give me that goddamn doughnut cake.” If they don’t like it then they don’t have to come to my wedding.

https://xkcd.com/150/

I would like you all to view my office. I’m thirty and my rainbow room is awesome, people can fight me

I’m thirty and my first big furniture purchase was a custom coffin shaped coffee table that opens up and is lined with purple crushed velvet. I would have loved it at 13 and I love it now. Growing up doesn’t mean you have to abandon what makes you happy.

GROWING UP DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO ABANDON WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY.

GROWING UP DOESN’T

MEAN YOU HAVE TO ABANDON

WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

I have told this story before, and I will tell it again, because I am An Old now and repeating stories forever is our prerogative:

When I bought my house, the kitchen was multiple shades of dingy white. It was dismal, but it was now mine! So went to the hardware store for paint (well, several trips, painted swatches on panel, etc — I’m very picky. But this was the final, ‘real’ trip). It was a busy day in the paint section. There were at least five people behind me in line.

Now, remember, latex paint is slightly lighter and brighter when wet than it is when dry. And I’d decided to paint my kitchen candy-apple red. The hardware store employee took my gallon off the Paint Jiggler and cracked it open to put a dab on the top, revealing the most incredibly deep pink, and behind me I hear the entire line of people say,

“Oh my god.”

…in perfect chorus.

I did not realize up until that moment that shocking a crowd of strangers with my paint color choices was a life goal, but at that moment I felt an absolutely overwhelming sense of achievement.

This is the door to my garage. It used to be white. Live your best life.

Mischief the cat says “Who goes there?”

Every visiting friend says “This is so cool.”

If you’re looking for an excuse to do some decorating that will make your soul sing, this entire thread is your sign to do it and don’t look back!

This is the door to

my garage. It used to be

white. Live your best life.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

I’m 35. I have been told my place looks like maybe a LP fan lives there.

Not sure what they mean.

When I first moved into my place, I painted the spare room, that eventually became my office, lime green, the kind of lime green that glows down the corridor when I open the door - The colour was only available as an “accent colour” in the section of paints intended for children’s playrooms, and in the shop I got a lot of “Oh your son will love this!” And from people I knew I got a lot of “Oh well, you’re 21 now, you’re basically a teenager, this is a terrible idea, you’ll hate it and need to pull out all the furniture to repaint it.” And I have to report that I am now in my forties and my office still looks like this, and it makes me smile every time I see it.

this is such a modern idea, too

not decorating trends; those have always existed. but the idea that color and decoration is inherently childish

this is the dining room at the Eustis Estate in Milton, Massachusetts, from 1878 (where I used to work, briefly). the walls are TEXTURED MICA SHIMMER on a green background. Adult Space For Adults!

A jewelry shop in Paris c. 1901. kids can’t buy jewelry!

who can forget the classic 1950s colorful bathroom? I’m not a huge fan, but still! adult space! bright colors; decorative designs!

meanwhile “you’re immature if you like Art Nouveau” is a hot take I’ve really, seriously seen on this webbed site (only once, thank the gods). I don’t know who started this, but I’m going to kill them

I think a lot of it stems from the ubiquitous Waterhouse prints that were sold on college campuses for 20 years. like why would I get a free pass if it were Monet instead Western culture is stupid. The entire point of being an adult is breakfast for dinner and cake for breakfast and dying with the most toys.

instantly decided to reblog when i got to GROWING UP DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO ABANDON WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY.

The examples of decorated homes above are both either modern or upper class, which makes it easy to dismiss because “sure the rich people have beautiful homes” and “sure, modern middle-class people have lots of color in their homes.”

So here’s two examples of traditional Norwegian farmhouse interiors. You know. The kinds of places peasants live in.

This type of painting is called “rosemaling” and today you usually find it on, like, carved wooden bowls and such that are only used for decoration. But back two centuries ago, it was very common to find the interiors of homes covered in it, in projects that were painted little by little over the decades. Because it’s beautiful to look at, paint is the cheapest way of decorating your house, and what else are you going to do on the long winter nights when it’s too dark and cold to work outdoors?

But mostly, they did it because it made them happy, and it was beautiful.

Those old peasants were on to something, I think.

young jon and admiral. they both are two apples tall.

(inspo picture down below)

Tag game!!!

Do this quiz

And this picrew

And tag people(obviously)

Although anyone who wasn’t tagged here can of course join in, it’s open to anyone :3

@anartistwithamask @gummy-axolotl @shadowthegay @auseryoumayknow @copper-ichor @moonysfavoritetoast @alexthescaredenby @invaderxeya @fungal-boy-witch-yay @artists-void @hazbin-hotel-lucifer-simp @ka1-the-pr0ot @theautumnalcat

(btw you don’t have to be tagged to participate, you can just do it :])

Aw hell yeeee this picrew's real neat : D

Made my sona uwu because I wanna

OPEN TAGS BECAUSE I'M BUSY HAHA tests on Christmas Eve y'all

:333

Uh idk open tags

"You are 55.8% good, 18.3% chaotic, making you neutral good."

Open tags!

"Should parents read their daughter's texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?"

Earlier today, I served as the “young woman’s voice” in a panel of local experts at a Girl Scouts speaking event. One question for the panel was something to the effect of, “Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”

I was surprised when the first panelist answered the question as if it were about cyberbullying. The adult audience nodded sagely as she spoke about the importance of protecting children online.

I reached for the microphone next. I said, “As far as reading your child’s texts or logging into their social media profiles, I would say 99.9% of the time, do not do that.”

Looks of total shock answered me. I actually saw heads jerk back in surprise. Even some of my fellow panelists blinked.

Everyone stared as I explained that going behind a child’s back in such a way severs the bond of trust with the parent. When I said, “This is the most effective way to ensure that your child never tells you anything,” it was like I’d delivered a revelation.

It’s easy to talk about the disconnect between the old and the young, but I don’t think I’d ever been so slapped in the face by the reality of it. It was clear that for most of the parents I spoke to, the idea of such actions as a violation had never occurred to them at all.

It alarms me how quickly adults forget that children are people.

Apparently people are rediscovering this post somehow and I think that’s pretty cool! Having experienced similar violations of trust in my youth, this is an important issue to me, so I want to add my personal story:

Around age 13, I tried to express to my mother that I thought I might have clinical depression, and she snapped at me “not to joke about things like that.” I stopped telling my mother when I felt depressed.

Around age 15, I caught my mother reading my diary. She confessed that any time she saw me write in my diary, she would sneak into my room and read it, because I only wrote when I was upset. I stopped keeping a diary.

Around age 18, I had an emotional breakdown while on vacation because I didn’t want to go to college. I ended up seeing a therapist for - surprise surprise - depression.

Around age 21, I spoke on this panel with my mother in the audience, and afterwards I mentioned the diary incident to her with respect to this particular Q&A. Her eyes welled up, and she said, “You know I read those because I was worried you were depressed and going to hurt yourself, right?”

TL;DR: When you invade your child’s privacy, you communicate three things:

Information about almost every issue that you think you have to snoop for can probably be obtained by communicating with and listening to your child.

Part of me is really excited to see that the original post got 200 notes because holy crap 200 notes, and part of me is really saddened that something so negative has resonated with so many people.

“200 notes”

[SpongeBob Narrator voice] Ten Years Later

off to make soup

REBLOG GAME

Use this picrew to make what you look like irl, vs how you see yourself/how you wish you looked!

@helpimanidiot @naga-noia @theonewithallthefixations @abovethemoon333 @starlee246 @boospooky78 @strangeryetcecil @lostonehero

Basically just a haircut and more stuff related to the magnus archives and the starless sea :D

jon……..

thinking about the hole that sasha left behind. she was the first archival assistant to go so we basically know nothing about her. she even teases this in her final words: 'i never told you what happened to me in artifact storage' and she's right! we never learn! We only know she likes computers and nitpicking pronunciations of circus instruments!

Not!Sasha replaced her but also like. took her place in the narrative. we know more about not!sasha than we do about sasha james. she got to take all her development and intrigue. she got to move on in the story where sasha didnt.

so even though we can recognize sasha's original VO, we dont know what she looks like. we dont know what she acted like. we dont know her likes or dislikes or her childhood. we can draw her or write fanfiction where she survived, but none of us have any idea how accurate that will be. we'll honestly just be playing off shallow tropes, or using sasha as a blank space for whatever deus ex machina we imagine she could have pulled off if she was still around. None of that is 'her', she's as robbed of her personhood in our attempts to save her as she was from the not!them.

the characters in the show lost her, but so did we. the 4th wall protects us from being fooled by the not!them, but it also means we have no way of ever learning who she actually was.

asked a student what their favorite animal was today and they said “a cheetah AND a sloth” and I said “wow smart, you’ve got both ends of the speed spectrum covered!” and they looked at me like I was the only sensible adult they’d ever spoken to

A number of us in the podcasting industry recently happened upon a large catalogue of character AI models that have ripped our voices for the purposes of AI chatbots.

There is no legal way to do this. It is also disrespectful, dangerous and can contribute to the stagnation of our careers. It’s also only a matter of time until voice synthesis gets people into trouble. Both for the victim and the person recreating the voices.

If you truly value us as creators, please do not partake in such an activity. If you see any RQ voices used let us know at [email protected] so we can consider legal action.

Thank you.

I was working on a history paper today and found a book from 1826 that seemed promising (though dull) for my topic, on an English Catholic family’s experience moving to France.

And it ended up not really being suitable for my purposes, as it goes. But part of the book is actually devoted to Kenelm, the author’s oldest son…and man, his dad loved him.

Kenelm seems to have had a fairly typical upbringing for a young English gentleman, although he is a bit slow to read. At twelve he’s sent to board at Stoneyhurst College—often the big step towards independence in a boy’s life, as he’ll most likely only see his parents sporadically from now on, and then leave for university.

When he’s sixteen, however, his father moves the whole family to France, so Kenelm gets pulled out of school to be with them again. Shortly after the move, his dad notices that he seems depressed. Kenelm confides in him that he’s been suffering from “scruples” for the last eighteen months—most likely what we’d now call an anxiety disorder.

And his dad is pissed—at the school, because apparently Kenelm had been seeking help there and received none, despite obviously struggling with mental health issues. So his dad takes it seriously. He sets him up to be counseled by a priest—there were no therapists back then—and doesn’t send him away to be boarded again, instead teaching him at home himself.

And his mental health does improve. His dad describes him as well-liked, gentle, pious, kind and eager to please others; at twenty he’s thinking about a career in diplomacy or going into the military—which his dad thinks he is not particularly suited for, considering his favorite pastimes are drawing and reading. He’s excited about his family’s upcoming move to Italy, and he’s been busy learning Italian and teaching it to his siblings.

Henry Kenelm Beste dies of typhus at twenty years, four months, and twenty-five days. That’s how his dad records it. That’s why his dad is telling this story. It’s not an extraordinary story—Kenelm’s story struck me because he sounds so…ordinary, like so many kids today. And he was so, so loved. His dad tried hard to help him compassionately with his mental health at a time where our current knowledge and support systems didn’t exist. You can feel how badly he wanted his son to be remembered and loved, to impress how dearly beloved he was to the people who knew him in life.

I hope he’d be glad to know someone is still thinking of Kenelm over 200 years later.

Anyway, that’s why I’m crying today.

@istradion