EVERYTHING

me

posting this for everybody who doesnt know how to use a fucking 4 way stop sign

This was explained to me by an American friend: "4-way stops have a sorting algorithm that everyone is required to learn during their drivers test, and literally no-one ever uses it."

I don't recall ever being taught these rules and there have been many times the past few weeks when they would have been useful or been explanatory of other's actions

that's what i'm saying.. what's with the erasure

I've seen a handful of people on here remarking that she became Muslim but like...framing it as a bad thing...

And like. The thing that defines her entire public life is that she unapologetically and uncompromisingly lived her truth. If you respect her tearing up a picture of the Pope but don't respect her being Muslim, then you don't really respect the person she was. You respect the person you wanted her to be.

She was one of us.

[Image transcript follows]

Tweet(?)/story by aljazeeraenglish in #music: Sinead O'Connor's Muslim identity is missing in obituaries, some fans say.

[Photo of Shuhada' Sadaqat, nee Sinead O'Connor, holding a microphone stand steady and waving at her audience with a smile. She's wearing long sleeves and a hijab.]

As musicians, politicians and fans remember Sinead O'Connor, some muslims are disappointed that the Irish singer and lifelong activist's religious identity is not being highlighted in tributes.

[End description]

#do people not think perhaps there's a reason that a magdalene laundry survivor and critic of the Catholic church might have become a revert?#like i know atheists prefer disillusionment to result in no religion#but people should be allowed to instead find peace in another religion#like she kept performing and is recognised by the name sinead but lets not use that as a way to erase her religion

i dont want it i just need it

now available as a print!

Currently sat in a summer school type thing we're hosting in work and some English architect is telling us about sustainable design in Wales, except she hasn't bothered learning a single Welsh name and if I have to listen to one more "I don't know how to say 'Welsh name' so I'm going to use 'shitty English name/nothing while laughing at it' I'm going to throw this slanty drawing desk at her head

Spot the unforced errors:

"Wales has three national parks. There's the one I can't pronounce so I'm going to say Brecon Beacons, there's Pembrokeshire Coast, and there's Snowdonia."

Said with that lil laugh English people do when they say this stuff, because they think they're being funny and charming in a 'what am I like' way rather than disrespectful and arrogant as fuck

"This one is by a reservoir in Gwent I can say, tee hee! Landy something, but-"

Me: Llandegfedd

Her: uh... yes, so difficult! Tee hee!

FUCK OFF

"This one is called... Um... I don't know how to say it tee hee!"

Me: Ysgir.

Her: I'm so bad at Welsh haha

YOU ARE DELIVERING A THREE QUARTER HOUR LECTURE TO WELSH STUDENTS IN WALES ABOUT WELSH INFRASTRUCTURE

YOU HAVE MULTIPLE WELSH SPEAKING COLLEAGUES CRAWLING OUT OF THE WOODWORK WHO COULD HAVE TOLD YOU

LEARNING TO PRONOUNCE THE PLACES SHOULD HAVE BEEN PRIORITY ONE YOU ARROGANT BITCH

Like listen. LISTEN. I know this is entirely normal. I know this is so exceptionally common that about 80% of English people do it, I know they think it's funny, I know they don't even see there's a problem, I know I'm basically kicking off at rain in a wet country. I don't know why this extremely normal and commonplace occurrence is nettling me this much today.

But last year, I gave a lecture on grassland management. As part of it, I told the students about the ngitili silvipastoral systems in Tanzania. I am in no way saying I'm perfect!!! I am not a template to be copied!!! But ahead of that lecture, I scoured YouTube until I found a video of an indigenous person in Tanzania talking about the system!!! And I listened to how they pronounced it, and I memorised it, and then I even wrote out the phonetic pronunciation on the slide so my students could learn too, because not bothering to learn that while then presenting myself as an authority on the subject would have been grossly appropriative and colonialist and also plain fucking rude.

And none of those students were Tanzanian for me to insult to their faces

im going to watch an anime, should it be princess mononoke, cowboy bebop, or jojo

watch this

you can’t see because i’m on computer but i’m gesturing to my balls

Talk about an egghead lmao

Rainbow Dash, I’ve seen you do this before.

…Shut up.

Rainbow Dash you fucking idiot

Right fuckin’ dumbass lol

there are actually only 2 movie genres. the ones where u have to remain completely silent throughout the whole film, and the ones where u have to comment on whatevers happening on screen every 5 minutes

@thelibraryiscool is correct

Just did a post for #PortfolioDay on twitter and I'm gonna do it here too. Hi hello I'm Carolina and I'm a Portuguese lover of small intricate things making art with mostly ink pens and acrylics, and occasionally getting it published in literary magazines! Prints for sale as well, check my pinned post!

Okay so Victorian erotica is literally the most heinous, morally bankrupt, horrific shit I've ever read - but I've read a fair bit, partly from historical interest but also because a while back I helped a friend with a university project she was doing about censorship and pornography in 19th century England.

Anyway I need to share with you all the most hilarious line that has ever been written, circa 1887:

I feel like this excerpt is significantly enhanced by knowing that the novel in question is a first-person narrative written from the perspective of an inexplicably sapient flea who lives on Bella's body, and that's why the third priest's penis is described in this way: from the narrator's perspective it literally blots out the sky.

“i hope the strike ruins my favourite show” ok well i hope that workers get treated better fast. things should not be ruined because the strike should not last long because the workers should get fucking paid soon. “i hope theres no new shows for the next fifty years” i hope that unions get what they want within the week

Hot take that needs to be said via antiwork

excellent work 🤷

this is fucking amazing and really makes the tories look like shit. Honestly I am impressed

I've got these two sewing machines, made about 100 years apart. An old treadle machine from around 1920-1930, that I pulled out of the trash on a rainy day, and a new Brother sewing machine from around 2020.

I've always known planned obsolescence was a thing, but I never knew just how insidious it was till I started looking at these two side by side.

I wasn't feeling hopeful at first that I'd actually be able to fix the old one, I found it in the trash at 2 am in a thunderstorm. It was rusty, dusty, soggy, squeaky, missing parts, and 100 years old.

How do you even find specialized parts 100 years later? Well, easily, it turns out. The manufacturers at the time didn't just make parts backwards compatible to be consistent across the years, but also interchangeable across brands! Imagine that today, being able to grab a part from an old iPhone to fix your Android.

Anyway, 6 months into having them both, I can confidently say that my busted up trash machine is far better than my new one, or any consumer-grade sewing machine on the market.

The old machine? Can sew through a pile of leather thicker than my fingers like it's nothing. (it's actually terrifying and I treat it like a power tool - I'll never sew drunk on that thing because I'm genuinely afraid it'd sew through a finger!) At high speeds, it's well balanced and doesn't shake. The parts are all metal, attached by standard flathead screws, designed to be simple and strong, and easily reachable behind large access doors. The tools I need to work on it? A screwdriver and oil. Lost my screwdriver? That's OK, a knife works too.

The new machine's skipping stitches now that the plastic parts are starting to wear out. It's always throwing software errors, and it damn near shakes itself apart at top speed. Look at it's innards - I could barely fit a boriscope camera that's about as thick as spaghetti in there let alone my fingers. Very little is attached with standard screws.

And it's infuriating. I'm an engineer - there's no damn reason to make high-wear parts out of plastic. Or put them in places they can't be reached to replace. There's no reason to make your mechanism so unbalanced it's reaching the point of failure before reaching it's own design speed. (Oh yeah there is, it's corporate greed)

100 years, and your standard home sewing machine has gone from a beast of a machine that can be pulled out of the literal waterlogged trash and repaired - to a machine that eats itself if you sew anything but delicate fast-fashion fabrics that are also designed to fall apart in a few years.

Looking for something modern built to the standard that was set 100 years ago? I'd be looking at industrial machines that are going for thousands of dollars... Used on craigslist. I don't even want to know what they'd cost new.

We have the technology and knowledge to manufacture "old" sewing machines still. Hell, even better, sewing machines with the mechanical design quality of the old ones, but with more modern features. It would be so easy - at a technical level to start building things well again. Hell, it's easier to fabricate something sturdy than engineer something to fail at just the right time. (I have half a mind to see if any of my meche friends with machine shops want to help me fabricate an actually good modern machine lol)

We need to push for right-to-repair laws, and legislation against planned obsolescence. Because it's honestly shocking how corporate greed has downright sabotaged good design. They're selling us utter shit, and expecting us to come back for more every financial quarter? I'm over it.

My Mum had an old Singer treadle machine on a wooden stand, inherited from her mum, my Gran. According to Mum, Gran got it "the year old King Edward died", meaning 1910.

Machines like that weren't cheap (up to a couple of months' average wages) so it probably did dual service as a household machine and in my Grandad's saddlery shop.

As @viridianriver mentions about their machine and which I saw done more than once (repairing my leather schoolbag, for instance) it could put a needle and a waxed linen thread through thick leather with no effort at all, and do it fast.

The only update Mum gave it, sometime around 1975-ish, was an electric motor with variable-pressure foot-pedal, though she still preferred the treadle or even the hand-wheel for delicate work.

About that same time Dad bought her a fancy new Brother machine which could do all sorts of tricks, but it was only ever used for fancy work, and not much of that since Mum already had years of practice on the older machine.

The Singer even folded down into its stand, which had its own corner in the living-room and doubled as a table for a flower vase, so was also handier to use.

Like so...

Clever…

Mum's Singer was running like a sewing-machine (hah!) right up to her death in 2007, and my sister still uses it now and then.

Nearly 115 years isn't a bad service record. These machines are solid.

I've got a Wertheim Planet M from the 20s, and it looks remarkably like that first picture, only with different decals.

I bought it about fifteen years ago, and it still works fine. (Also on bad ear days it's better than fine – there's no engine noise, and the clack of the machine itself is more restful).

I don't care if no new shows come out for 2 years, the sheer amount of media that exists couldn't be watched in a million years. Go back and watch old movies and shows, YouTube videos, documentaries, read a book. Anyone acting like this writers strike is less important than their entertainment, you aren't a leftist or an ally to the working class, you're a spoiled bougie brat

my brother started calling our cat "doobie brother" which he then lengthened to "dubious brother" and has since morphed into "brother dubious" like he's some sort of fucked up little monk

brother dubious

an ice cold beer topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. lying on top of the ice cream foam is a salted peanut. this is the angel. around him are sprinkles (his tears). this is "the angel's lament", my new cocktail

Sure, why not. ‘Angels lament’