noraguthrie-deactivated20211117
I don’t get it, man. why. why do we have to homogenize everything. why does every product have to look and behave and feel the exact same way. why can’t tumblr maintain its individuality? why can’t it lean into the things that make it a unique and refreshing offering instead of scrambling to make it a carbon copy of twitter? sucks, man. sucks.
Does anyone remember what happened to Radio Shack?
They started out selling niche electronics supplies. Capacitors and transformers and shit. This was never the most popular thing, but they had an audience, one that they had a real lock on. No one else was doing that, so all the electronics geeks had to go to them, back in the days before online ordering. They branched out into other electronics too, but kept doing the electronic components.
Eventually they realize that they are making more money selling cell phones and remote control cars than they were with those electronic components. After all, everyone needs a cellphone and some electronic toys, but how many people need a multimeter and some resistors?
So they pivoted, and started only selling that stuff. All cellphones, all remote control cars, stop wasting store space on this niche shit.
And then Walmart and Target and Circuit City and Best Buy ate their lunch. Those companies were already running big stores that sold cellphones and remote control cars, and they had more leverage to get lower prices and selling more stuff meant they had more reasons to go in there, and they couldn't compete. Without the niche electronics stuff that had been their core brand, there was no reason to go to their stores. Everything they sold, you could get elsewhere, and almost always for cheaper, and probably you could buy 5 other things you needed while you were there, stuff Radio Shack didn't sell.
And Radio Shack is gone now. They had a small but loyal customer base that they were never going to lose, but they decided to switch to a bigger but more fickle customer base, one that would go somewhere else for convenience or a bargain. Rather than stick with what they were great at (and only they could do), they switched to something they were only okay at... putting them in a bigger pond with a lot of bigger fish who promptly out-competed them.
If Radio Shack had stayed with their core audience, who knows what would have happened? Maybe they wouldn't have made a billion dollars, but maybe they would still be around, still serving that community, still getting by. They may have had a small audience, but they had basically no competition for that audience. But yeah, we only know for sure what would happen if they decided to attempt to go more mainstream: They fail and die. We know for sure because that's what they did.
I don't know why I keep thinking about the story of what happened to Radio Shack. It just keeps feeling relevant for some reason.
once you hit adulthood a day will come when you’re suddenly like VEGETABLES 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 and it never goes away
I am reasonably fun to hang out with and my company is enjoyed by well over 10 people worldwide
I hate the "Oh ur posting without tags? how is anyone supposed to find ur post🥺" warning shit tumblr does now. the hand of god will deliver me unto others
how the hell do people work full time AND work out. and also eat. i feel like a dvd player
Youtubers like to pretend it's still just some ordinary people doing videos like its some organic indie content, then you see the behind the scenes moments.
Like there'll be a video where the joke is a guy makes fart noises and that video will have 4 producers a human resources lady, 6 writers, 7 actors, 3 cameramen, 2 audio engineers, a 3 person editing team, a 6 person art department, a showrunner, 3 social media interns 2 graphics artists a caterer and a script supervisor and then you find out the joke went through seven revisions before being posted. And you're just amazed at how much effort goes into making something that looks like 2 guys shit it out before breakfast.
You might think I'm talking about a specific channel but im not that's just all of them.
maybe we will be keychains on the same key ring in the next life
Amigurumi/Crochet Toy 101 + Resources
Noticed a couple folks in my tags mentioning that they wanted to learn or wished they knew how to crochet amigurumi. So here’s a quick and dirty little how-to guide with resources I threw together? Hope it helps!
spotted lanternflies, Lycorma delicatula. an infamous invasive in my area, but I’ve come to enjoy these clumsy little freaks more than I ever thought I would.
people are oddly obsessed with destroying them still, although the effect of killing them by hand or even with pesticides is negligible on the now-well-established populations. this is more of a “stop the spread” problem than it is “get rid of established populations,” and it’s people who don’t usually see these who should be on the highest alert for them. still, it’s interesting how their conspicuity, diurnality, and generally slow speed has made them the perfect thing for humans to kill thoughtlessly while other pests stay hidden, like emerald ash borers, or are undeservedly beloved, like honeybees, most of the eastern mantises, and feral cats.
the kill-on-sight campaigns area little depressing to me, especially when directed towards children —sure, they teach invasive species awareness, but really it’s just feeding an ugly desire to kill little animals. not going to ask you to not control them if they’re causing damage to your plants, but the weird bloodthirsty attitude towards Lycorma and declarations of their “evil” nature don’t seem terribly productive. they are as blameless as any invasive species. even when invasives must be killed by the individual (works for some species, not all!), there is still room to act thoughtfully and not demonize an animal for being an animal.
so personally, I let the lanternflies chill—for the most part, they feed on invasive weeds and nonnative ornamental plants, so they’re not much of a concern to me or my garden. whatever proper control methods (parasitoids, pathogens?) get developed probably won’t eliminate all of them, too, so big dumb fulgorids are probably a permanent fixture here. ah, I still feed them to mantises, but the only ones big enough are also invasive…
here’s one all tender and pale after molting. I’d like to find a teneral adult this year, which must be stunning
a good post on the topic of killing invasive species by @bowelfly :
will you just let me be silly for a sec. there's this dread so ancient in me
waters so amazing because you can drink it really sloppy style and like spill it all over yourself and it doesnt even leave a stain. you dont even have to wash it out/ . because its already washed
yes im in my 20s but this is only my first week of being alive
the thing is this dashboard change isnt the end of the world ill get used to it whatever im just fucking dying of embarrassment that its supposed to look like twitter
walks around the dashboard with my hands behind my back like someone's grandpa
Declutter Tumblr
The new layout it a whole mess. Thankfully Xkit can already help with a bunch of this! I'm sure it'll give more options soon.
Vanilla Tumblr:
(I have marked in red what can be removed. The tabs can be set not to stick, so you will really only see them at the top of your dash. Empty box on the left for hidden notifications and shop sparkle, i just didn't have any. I'm EU so no Live for me).
Xkit Rewritten Tumblr:
The settings I use:
milf (myself i’d like to forgive) and dilf (despair i’d like to forget)