My sociology professor had a really good metaphor for privilege today. She didn’t talk about race or gender or orientation or class, she talked about being left-handed.
A left-handed person walks into most classrooms and immediately is made aware of their left-handedness – they have to sit in a left-handed seat, which restricts their choices of where to sit. If there are not enough left-handed seats, they will have to sit in a right-handed seat and be continuously aware of their left-handedness. (There are other examples like left-handed scissors or baseball mitts as well.)
Meanwhile, right-handed people have much more choice about where to sit, and almost never have to think about their right-handedness.
Does this mean right-handed people are bad? No.
Does it mean that we should replace all right-handed desks with left-handed desks? No.
But could we maybe use different desk styles that can accommodate everyone and makes it so nobody has limited options or constant awareness that they are different? Yes.
Now think of this as a metaphor. For social class. For race. For ethnicity. For gender. For orientation. For anything else that sets us apart.
WHY DOESN’T THIS HAVE MORE NOTES?
Because I posted it about 90 seconds ago, calm down.
sorry, are those t-shirts in embroidery hoops on the wall? because that’s a brilliant decorating idea / way to use up collections of sentimental shirts
They are, thank you! The idea was actually my mum’s, when I was trying to decide what to do with 5K shirts I wanted to keep but didn’t want to wear. Here’s a very slightly better image:
Some of them are clearly other crafts, including my Cap cross-stitch and a Steve/Tony gift from @kath-ballantyne, but they all look very nice together, I think. And you can see two of the shirts wouldn’t have fit even the biggest hoop, so I just sewed those together with some thick muslin backing to make “banners” and nailed them to the wall.
INSTRUCTIONS FOLLOW!
For most shirt logos (especially stretchy ones) you’ll need the biggest hoops you can get at the craft store, 12″ to 14″. You will also need some heavy white glue like WeldBond or the fabric crafting glue of your choice.
Cut the back off the shirt (optional, but it helps), fit the shirt into the hoop, and stretch it taut with the logo where you want it, making sure that the bracket where you tighten the hoop is at the top of the logo. Tighten the hoop, pulling the fabric taut again as you go if necessary.
Once you have it exactly how you want it, trim the excess (sleeves, collar, etc) that’s sticking out the back of the hoop, so there’s about 2″ of spare fabric sticking out all the way around.
Lay the hoop face-down and fold the 2″ spare fabric inwards so that if you hang it up, it won’t be visible. Paint the edges with glue to seal them and glue them down to the inside of the front of the shirt. It’s better to glue it down than trim it really close because if you do that it will fray and pull out of the hoop eventually.
Once it’s dry, you can hang it on the wall by a hook or a screw/nail driven into the wall – the “hole” to hang it will be the bracket you use to tighten the hoop, which is why it goes at the top of the logo.
Reblog and you might save someone’s life, especially with all our Black Girls going missing #ProtectBlackGirls #SaveLife
For those who don’t know what’s happening in the video, she untied her shoelaces, pulled one through the inside of the zip tie binding her hands, then tied the shoelaces together. Then, by pulling downward and back and forth on the shoelaces with her feet, she created enough friction to wear away part of the ziptie, making it weak enough to snap right off her hands.
SIGNAL BOOST
SIGNAL BOOST
SIGNAL BOOST
Will always reblog
Protect all the ladies and the dudes
Damn
For those who don’t have shoelaces and for those who do but don’t want to trip over their own feet in case something goes wrong, here’s another way:
For teach this to your kids….boys too. We don’t need to lose noone
Every so often Brian Brushwood makes a video on something that’s not just “hey look guys fun magic stuff!” and that could actually be useful in case (god forbid) you find yourself in a hairy situation.
He’s got a few videos on lock-picking and improvised weapons on his YouTube channels, Scam School and The Modern Rogue. I might link them later after work if I can find them (and remember to do so).
Okay, so, a few additions to this post now that I’ve remembered I said I’d add things:
also!!! just because i don’t understand something well enough to explain it in sparkling detail doesn’t mean it isn’t real!!! THATS WHY THEY INVENTED SCIENTISTS
reblogging not so much for the op, but for the response
also, if you get one of those “But the Earth’s temperature changes all the time, it has done so all throughout time, how can we be sure that human intervention has anything to do with it?” i recommend trying to get them to look at XKCD’s Earth Temperature Timeline
the crew of the hephaestus have been in space for over 400 days and are sick of each other. doug eiffel, the communications officer makes daily audio logs of what happens to the crew up there in orbit of the star wolf 359, whilst attempting to ward of boredom, mutated plants and the crew of another ship. starts off quite lighthearted but then hits you with the draMA
just came back from hiatus! violet liu is a biologist whose crew are all killed in a freak accident on the ship. violet is rescued by a bunch of space pirates who take her in and try to find out what happened to her old crew. very gay. also, space pirates!
the adventures of the medical crew of a ship and all of their weird encounters. features a doctor with a large forehead and pink hair, a recovering alcoholic doctor, a very intense nurse and a hypochondriac alien prince (aliens are the norm in this one) often called the scrubs of space. very funny so maybe don’t listen to it on public transport.
a journalist gives the six person crew of NASA’s HI-SEAS mission iv an audio recorder, and asks them to record their year in confinement in a simulation of life on mars. she asks them questions, and they respond with little clips of their life. this is fairly new and soooo interesting to me, it was really fascinating to see the change and development of the people over the year and how they responded to being stuck in the same small space with each other. quite short if you’re looking for something quick to binge.
not obviously spacey but it is set on mars, with lots of cool sci-fi tropes! detective juno steel is constantly trying to solve crime with or without the help of his secretary rita. its kinda hard to explain but its like a film noir but on mars. hella queer.
an actual play dnd podcast. the seasons counter/WEIGHT and twilight mirage are set in space. (another one i haven’t listened to but its been on my to listen list for ages)
feel free to add any other suggestions and recommendations, im sure ive missed loads!
okay, it’s 5 p.m. and I haven’t done a lot but I’ve done a few things, and I have the place to myself for the rest of the evening for the last time in quite a while, so I’ve still got like…four hours of usable time? it’s raining pretty heavily, which is nice for staying inside and being cozy but not so nice for walking Scully, which I also need to do. but as usual there are several other things I need and/or want to do, and somehow I need to pick:
call my legislators again
I just signed up for Postcards To Voters so I guess I should do a few of those?
write. I definitely need to write…something. well, what I need to be working on is my @maximoffficexchange fic because the deadline is coming up fast, so obviously of the various fics I’m currently actually working on (basically the first three on this list), that’s the one most significantly making my brain go “wat r words lol”
typing up my notebooks. still. again.
experiment a little with the cane I want to make for my Stuttgart Loki cosplay for Senshi Con
for the first time in ages I don’t have any outstanding Etsy orders but there’s plenty of painting stuff I could work on
find a few things in my room and put away a few other things
play some more Silent Hill 3 even though I think SWTOR is still doing 2XP, because I don’t have to be alone to play SWTOR but it’s best if I’m alone to play anything on my PS3 and I definitely have to be alone to play a Silent Hill game
this is all theoretically doable, or at least I could do a little of all these things, so…we’ll see how that goes I guess
And they are getting even more strict when it comes to not using invoices for charging for Digital Goods.
Whatever Invoices make you uncomfortable or not, you gotta start using them if you want to keep your PayPal and your money. Changes starting this October 19th.
Honestly I don’t get why so many artists are so overwhelmed by invoices, takes just a few clicks to set up.
And is not only “oh you have to use invoices because PayPal says so” if you don’t use invoices you’re putting yourself at risk of being scammed by an user abusing the buyer’s protection.
Since PayPal ain’t got no idea of what those $50 you received were for, but the buyer is saying they didn’t got anything for the money, PayPal will just side with the buyer.
I’m seriously begging ppl, start using invoices. I’m tired of seeing ppl complain their paypal was banned, or is under investigation, or worse, the $100 they got for a very complicated commission, 3 months later get a refund issue.
just
start
using
invoices
for your own sake.
Here is how you use invoices because I can’t keep playing devil’d advocate, yes I would love to help you get your PayPal restored but just this last month I had to help three persons, and they were MORE than aware of this issues.
Just protect yourself.
Step 1. You login and click here
Step 2. You click create new Invoice. YOU NEVER CLICK REQUEST MONEY, unless you want to risk yourself to get scamer by buyer’s protection exploit and not only lose your money but your paypal account, and any future paypal linked to your irl name.
Step 3 You follow this steps
1. Invoice for amount only
2. Ask your client for their PayPal email and put in that field
3. Add a vague description of what you’re doing, something like “Character Coloured with Background” is good enough, and if you need more than 1 character you can type in “2″ where it says amount, or just say “2 characters”.
Warning: don’t type in “Naruto rawing Sasuke”. That will get you banned.
4. Click send.
Optional steps. Create a template, doesn’t take more than 10 minutes and it will save you a lot of time for future invoices, you can even click on “items” right next to “create invoice” and add a list of services you offer such as “character sketch” “character flats” along with a price, so next time you invoice you just add to the invoice from your list of items and you saved yourself some more time.
More importantly, you protect yourself from buyer’s protection exploit because if PayPal knows you’re doing digital goods, then you will be allowed that you did in fact created a digital good.
Keep PayPal happy, as for right now there are no alternatives to this service, and this is the only source of income for many freelancers.
Stay safe.
Heads up, all commissioning artists
I’ll be doing this from now on!
ADDING THIS BC I HATE PAYPALLLL
OK so when you send/make invoices…it doesnt let you choose ‘digital good’ or differentiate between “goods (as in physical)” and “services” (as in doesnt need address) which is what you could do with micropayments….
SO WHEN U SEND INVOICE the buyer will be asked for their shipping address. ( I even had the options turned off for shipping?? I was pretty sure there USED TO be an option that you turned off and then it wouldn’t ask for shipping, but that doesnt seem to work anymore? I went to where the setting was and still had the boxes unchecked, and yet my buyer was still getting asked to put in shipping address, and when invoice was paid, i was being asked to provide shipping label by X date or Consequences.)
SO APPARENTLY YOU HAVE TO DO THIS as the SELLER
SO go to the invoice (i think this can be done BEFORE the buyer pays?? Didnt try myself tho, i did it after it was paid), and click on VIEW DETAILS in that first box
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click ADD TRACKING INFO
(YES COUNTER-INTUITIVE AS BALLLLLS.)
of course HERE IS WHERE YOU’RE GIVEN INSTRUCTIONS ON PROCESSING DIGITAL GOODS. HIDDEN BEHIND A BUTTON YOU WOULDNT PRESS IF YOU WERE, SAY, TRYING TO SELL DIGITAL GOODS.
Select Order Processed/Service Rendered
YAY this stuff fills itself out and you can save and not have to worry about shipping your Digital Intangible Product to a very confused seller.
I am so salt about this. excuse me while i go cry angrily.
Think I’ll reblog this for my own use…
Guess I gotta get used to sending invoices for all transactions soon then
NO EXCUSES GUYS. PROTECT YOURSELF AND OTHER ARTISTS.
Toxic for rabbits:
Anise, Clove, Oregano, Tea Tree, Wintergreen
Safe for rabbits:
Lavender, lemon, orange, fennel, eucalyptus and peppermint, all should be diluted with water!
Don’t even bother with any diffusers, candles, or anything scented if you have a bird!
They have very sensitive lungs and any bad air will get them sick or kill them. Even cooking with teflon within their vicinity is toxic.
I wouldn’t use ANY essential oils near a rabbit. Rabbits and rodents have incredibly delicate noses and respiratory systems; what’s a pleasant light scent to us could be absolute overload to them. And that’s not taking in the possibility of toxicity!
I’ve said this to my non-techie friends countless times. It’s no secret that being able to code makes you a better job applicant, and a better entrepreneur. Hell, one techie taught a homeless man to code and now that man is making his first mobile application.
(note: yes I realize that 3/5 of those links were Google projects)
But most folks are intimidated by coding. And it does seem intimidating at first. But peel away the obscurity and the difficulty, and you start to learn that coding, at least at its basic level, is a very manageable, learnable skill.
There are a lot of resources out there to teach you. I’ve found a couple to be particularly successful. Here’s my list of resources for learning to code, sorted by difficulty:
Novice
Never written a line of code before? No worries. Just visit one of these fine resources and follow their high-level tutorials. You won’t get into the nitty-gritty, but don’t worry about it for now:
w3 Tutorials (start at HTML on the left sidebar and work your way down)
Intermediate
Now that you’ve gone through a handful of basic tutorials, it’s time to learn the fundamentals of actual, real-life coding problems. I’ve found these resources to be solid:
If you’re here, you’re capable of building things. You know the primitives. You know the logic control statements. You’re ready to start making real stuff take shape. Here are some different types of resources to turn you from someone who knows how to code, into a full-fledged programmer.
Programming problems
Sometimes, the challenges in programming aren’t how to make a language do a task, but just how to do the task in general. Like how to find an item in a very large, sorted list, without checking each element. Here are some resources for those types of problems
If you learned Python, Django is an amazing platform for creating quick-and-easy web applications. I’d highly suggest the tutorial – it’s one of the best I’ve ever used, and you have a web app up and running in less than an hour.
I’ve never used Rails, but it’s a very popular and powerful framework for creating web applications using Ruby. I’d suggest going through their guide to start getting down-and-dirty with Rails development.
If you know PHP, there’s an ocean of good stuff out there for you to learn how to make a full-fledged web application. Frameworks do a lot of work for you, and provide quick and easy guides to get up and running. I’d suggest the following:
If there’s one point I wanted to get across, it’s that it is easier than ever to learn to code. There are resources on every corner of the internet for potential programmers, and the benefits of learning even just the basics are monumental.
If you know of any additional, great resources that aren’t listed here, please feel free to tweet them to me @boomeyer.
I'm a defeatist but I don't have to be 