Latest Posts by a-mess-of-links - Page 3
Please don't ask me for relationship advice unless you are prepared to receive some truly upsetting information because some people are ready for the "He's exhibiting the literal textbook signs of a psychological abuser and you need to get away from him before he successfully cuts you off from your support network" talk and some people aren't
if anyone’s interested in asian cinema, esp southeast asian cinema, check out the asian film archive. you can even submit films for preservation/restoration (according to guidelines), so it’s a great resource for filmmakers, collectors, cinephiles of all stripes :3
firefox just started doing this too so remember kids if you want to stream things like netflix or hulu over discord without the video being blacked out you just have to disable hardware acceleration in your browser settings!
I got a laptop with Windows 11 for an IT course so I can get certified, and doing the first time device set-up for it made me want to commit unspeakable violence
Windows 11 should not exist, no one should use it for any reason, it puts ads in the file explorer and has made it so file searches are also web searches and this cannot be turned off except through registry editing. Whoever is responsible for those decisions should be killed, full stop.
Switch to linux, it's free and it's good.
Hey there! Your actually one of my inspiration for art! I really like how realistically shaded the backgrounds are and everything! Do you have any tips for shading in digital art?
Hey, I appreciate it, thank you! There are lots of things that go in to making a good background but this is the main idea that made backgrounds click for me:
Hopefully you'll agree that of these two shapes, the one on the right feels more 'real', despite the fact neither of these shapes are meant to represent anything. The shape on the right just has a noise filter and a faint light-to-dark gradient from top to bottom. Those two things create movement on a small scale (the noise) and on a large scale (the gradient). The presence of that sort of movement is what gets your brain to register something as real.
Here I've taken the shape and given it a new environment, a colour and then a gradient. The shape with the movement feels a little more natural in its environment, I think.
Then directly on top of that, I can start creating small scale movement, like the noise, through brush strokes. At first (on the left) the brushstrokes look quite out of place and unnatural. But as you work in to the surface more, creating more and more overlapping brushstrokes of various sizes and directions - all while trying to maintain the sense of that gradient - the strokes will start to more naturally integrate in to each other, creating a bed on to which other elements will lay naturally.
Here I give this abstract shape some context by painting some cracks and decay on it. These new elements create movement by giving our eyes more shapes to latch on to and jump between. I then added a pattern to it. This pattern adds more movement and reinforces the light effect by adhering to the gradient (getting darker at the same rate the wall does).
You can see I use this idea all through this picture. I make sure in any section there is always some kind of movement of light, whether its left-to-right, or top-to-bottom, corner-to-corner etc. Patterns like the woodgrain on the drawer or the textile of the curtain create additional movement and reinforce the dimensions of their respective forms by adhering to them. Bit rambly but I hope there's something useful in there!
I recorded an hour of me interviewing the former commander of Guantanamo Bay and chief of US Northern Command’s antiterrorism program. It goes over a lot of different topics, I’m gonna throw it up on Youtube and Spotify soon with a link to the transcript if anyone is interested
Download this easy DIY clothing repair guide (only 10 pages) from Uni of Kentucky
link to PDF
https://fcs-hes.ca.uky.edu/sites/fcs-hes.ca.uky.edu/files/ct-mmb-147.pdf
Things that real life sex has taught me that isn't in porn :
Shaking during sex, no no, not her legs, him. Yeah. It happens to men too, from anticipation and excitement. I only had one partner who used to have that sometimes and the first time it freaked me out lol.
Queefing, that has to happen at least once during sex, I mean, air goes in, sorry but it's gonna have to come out.
Going too deep actually hurts, oh my fucking god lol. IYKYK. Hitting the cervix feels like ... hmmm. Dying. Yeah, death. Like I felt your penis in my actual guts and now I need to throw up because the cramping is horrendous. Thanks, don't do that again. Does the chick in porn not have a cervix or??? I have literally thrown up from this before, it is the most painful thing I have ever experienced during sex, hands down.
That he might lose his boner mid-sex, this one's a big one lol pun intended. And uh, it might not be your fault. Actually most of the time it isn't. And guys, if it does happen, please communicate, it's really not a big deal, at least not for me, Im down to help, and also I can feel it getting softer okay lol don't be lying.
Sometimes it can be painful for the guy too, this one's more common for men who have foreskin, at least in my experience.
That you can get your period mid-sex, oh man. A sad moment for all of us. But here's the thing, when you're orgasming, everything contracts, and your uterus will contract and unfortunately if you were expecting it, welp, here it is. So yeah, it happens. But that's pretty great, personally i'm able to make my period come faster by masturbating over and over, true story (only if its a day or two away).
You can probably orgasm but it's not a given, or taking way longer than you thought. I have ridden dick like my life depended on it because I was felt it annnnnnnnnd it was gone, annnnnd it's back, noooope it's gone.
Related to the last point, looking cute when orgasming, sweetie listen, I look like I ran a marathon and like Im about to die (plus im a smoker, imagine that). So that lady in porn who's like *cute voice* oohh I'm coming! ... idk about you but I don't look cute when im about to cum super hard lol.
Stopping mid-sex because you don't feel like it anymore.
Sometimes it takes forever to get a condom or to put it on, relax dude, no one's judging you, I would rather you don't give me an std or a baby so take your time.
There's no shame in asking to put a towel down, fluids, we have those, and we have a lot of those, and sometimes, some of us can unexpectedly squirt, whatever tf that fluid is, it's gonna go everywhere.
That female lubrication can have a different color/texture depending on where she's at in her cycle/if she has an infection.
Sex is smelly.
A lot of us moan louder than we actually want to, to help you out. I have done that before, when bored or when the guy was doing something I didn't really enjoy but he did. Whatever, hey at least I've never faked an orgasm, Im literally not giving you that lol if you suck, you suck sorry. Now ... the reason you prob shouldn't do that is that he's gonna think he's doing something good, when really he isn't. Then he's gonna have sex with someone else, and do the same shit, and she's also not gonna cum. Don't be the reason another lady can't have an orgasm ok.
That trying different positions isn't super glamorous. Some hurt, some don't feel like anything, some are awkward. Just because your bestie swears by reverse cowgirl, doesn't mean it'll work for you.
That it's ok to stop and take a water and snack break, sorry one sec, Im hypoglycemic.
That a lot of the time when you get fucked hard enough, you're shifting, like, quite a bit, and next thing you know you're almost falling off the bed, it's not cute, who cares.
That sex can be awkward, uncomfortable, painful, not enjoyable, and that all of that is normal.
Literal definition of spyware:
Also From Microsoft’s own FAQ: "Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. 🤡
an angel on letterboxd just dropped a whole playlist of films free on youtube I was filled with so much love and light I had to share with you guys
some new additions to my google drive recently ◠ ◡ ◠
lanscape in the mist (1988) dir. theo angelopoulos
the full monty (1997) dir. peter cattaneo
gormenghast (2000), complete series
the romance of astrea and celadon (2007) dir. éric rohmer
the personal history of david copperfield (2019) dir. armando iannucci
belle (2021) dir. mamoru hosoda
an angel on letterboxd just dropped a whole playlist of films free on youtube I was filled with so much love and light I had to share with you guys
I am mad about cellphone cameras hiding the processing they do, and I am glad about software that lets me control it and opt in and out, and I dictated this rant on insta so I am resharing the images here and will attempt to turn this into a useful text post on my blog in future, when my hand is working better 🤘👍
This isn’t funny like most of my story posts but enough people have asked some for my opinions about lubricants and general tips that I figured I’d do a little master post about it.
I’m not a doctor! I just worked in a sex shop for several years and picked up a bunch of helpful nuggets, here they are.
All the links will be funny stories though, if you’re looking for a laugh.
Lubricants:
Silicone
Silicone Lube Pros: This stuff is the energizer bunny of lubricant. A very small amount goes a really long way and cannot be absorbed into the body. For anal, those experiencing vaginal dryness, or just really good penetrative sex between partners silicone is wonderful. Silicone is also extremely inert and by itself cannot cause yeast infections or allergic reactions*. Doesn’t taste or smell of anything.
*Some manufactures may add things to silicone to cut costs that could negatively impact genitals, read ingredients.
Silicone Lube Cons: Not safe with toys. Silicone lube can bond to silicone toys, this is basically always terrible. Because of its nature it can be very difficult to clean up, rags might be necessary as water will not help you much. This lubricant can feel very thin to some people who might prefer a more substantial feel. Also it can stain clothes or bedding in large quantities so having a dedicated sex blanket or towel can save sheets.
Favorite Brand: Pjur. Spendier but best overall feeling to me, nice and silky and a single bottle will last ages.
Water Based
Water Based Pros: This lube is the work horse and skeleton key of lube. If you never want to worry about what bottle you reach for, water based always has your back. It’s safe with toys, condoms, you name it. It comes in a variety of thicknesses and viscosity, there’s truly a water based lube for every preference.
Water Based Cons: Tragically, we are made of water. Human bodies love to absorb the water part of this equation, meaning it needs to be reapplied more frequently. For certain activities or bodies it’s nicer to have a lube that doesn’t need quite so much reapplication. Additionally you have to be careful of what ingredients* get added, many cost saving ones are a yeast infection in a bottle.
*Never use Astroglide, KY, or Vaseline, they bank on brand recognition and make the shittiest lube in feel, performance, and body safety. Glycerin or glycol is always a red flag ingredient for vaginal use.
Favorite Brand: Earthly bodies WaterSlide. There are So Many water based options that it’s hard to pick. This was my go to because it has a pretty okay feel but its ingredients list is short and to the point with nothing offensive like glycol to watch out for. It rehydrates very nicely if you lick it, it doesn’t throw off vaginal pH, and it’s inexpensive and easy to get. Even Walmart has it.
Hybrid
Hybrid Lube Pros: As the name suggests this is like silicone and water based had a baby. This lubricant has more body than a traditional silicone while being much more long lasting than a water based on its own. It cleans up easier than silicone and is still a good option for any type of sex except toys.
Hybrid Lube Cons: Still not safe to use with toys. That’s basically it. It’s pretty great.
Favorite Brand: Sliquid. I love their hybrid, it feels very nice with more substance than a silicone on its own and they’re a very nice brand overall in every category.
Oil Based
Oil Based Pros: Oil based is almost always on hand in either olive or coconut oil, it’s second only to silicone in butt stuff territory and some people prefer oil. Like the Roman Empire, which, I can’t blame them. Tastes and smells pretty nice.
Oil based Cons: Cannot be used with condoms. Kind of a big deal! Using condoms with anal is still a good idea but oil based lost favor when it turned out it destroys the most common modern prophylactic. Additionally oil can mess with vaginal pH. Anecdotally I’ve had people tell me it was infection after infection and others who only ever used oil. Similar to silicone, tough to clean up.
Favorite Brand: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’ve never had personal experience with them and I don’t know which way to steer you, sorry. Messing with condoms mean that this lube has struggled commercially.
More Below, just don’t want this getting too long. (Also in case I need to add to this it’ll keep current version circulating if this blows up.)
Notable mentions for lube:
Spermicidal lube: Truly terrible for you. It causes micro tears and irritation which open you up to more disease and infections, besides which it tastes repulsive and is not a very effective preventative. Just don’t.
Flavored lube: I really don’t recommend this? Good lube doesn’t taste like anything, I don’t see that this needs to exist. Vaginas do not like anything sugary in them, which all flavored lubes are by nature. For health reasons it’s extremely Inadvisable to eat out butts without protection. If you must use flavored lube on a vagina haver try to focus it on the clit and not internally.
Condoms:
Condoms come pre-lubricated but did you know: Most condom tearing is the result of insufficient lube inside the condom? For safer sex put a few extra drops of lube inside the condom to increase sensation and decrease risk of tearing
Don’t store them in your wallet. Your body heat will break down the condom much quicker than storing in a drawer. If you’re going to carry one grab it fresh for a date.
Condoms stretch but they need to be tight at the base. Tight however doesn’t meet cutting off circulation. That’s a cock ring. If you need to wear condoms I recommend trying a few singles to see what brand feels the best for your body.
There are lambskin condoms but I don’t recommend them at all. They cannot be tested for tears, they still transmit STIs and they feel like wax paper. Polyisoprene is better in virtually every way for those with allergies.
Most people suffer from low grade latex allergies making a lot of condoms unpleasant. Latex was the first material able to be tested for structural integrity (they run a small electrical charge through it to test for breakages, neat right?). However! A new material hit the market called polyisoprene. It passes all the same safety regulations as latex while being hypoallergenic and contains much lower odor which brings me to…
Favorite Brand: Skyns. These condoms are truly excellent, smell and taste of nothing, and are just as safe as latex! The best. Really.
Anal:
Do not just stick a dick in a butt. Anal is about patience and many people have an awful first time. I cannot count the number of men who came in to ask, “How do I convince my girlfriend to do anal?” No. Start small, little plugs or fingers, and work your way up. Make sure things are relaxed and very very very like so very lubricated.
Do not. Ever. Numb your ass. Many products try to sell you on numbing your butt for anal. This is how emergency room trips happen. You need to listen to your butt, numbing it is how tearing happens.
Don’t rip out anal beads. I feel like it should be clear why ripping anything out of your body like you’re trying to start a chainsaw is a mistake but it bears repeating.
Butts. Will. Consume. Do not ever insert anything into your ass that doesn’t have a flared base. A flared base should have a perpendicular width of two inches to be safe. Don’t end up an ER horror story.
added fun new things to my google drive, some really beautiful bluray and remux rips 🥹
hamlet (1996) dir. kenneth branagh
one fine spring day (2001) dir. hur jin-ho
gosford park (2001) dir. robert altman
3-iron (2004) dir. kim ki-duk
broker (2022) dir. hirokazu kore-eda
the hollow crown (2012), series 1
i think video games should be more abstract and depressing i think there should be a wuthering heights video game where you just wander through the moors until you give up and perish of consumption
Know what I’m salty about?
In all my art classes, I was never taught HOW to use the various tools of art.
Like yes, form, and shape and space and color theory and figure drawing is important, but so is KNOWING what different tools do.
I’m 29 and I JUST learned this past month that India Ink is fucking waterproof when it dries. Why is this important? Because I can line something in India Ink and then go over it with watercolors. And that has CHANGED the ENTIRE way I art and the ease I can create with.
tldr: Art Teachers: teach your students what different tools do. PLEASE.
FAMOUS AUTHORS
Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.
The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.
Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.
Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.
Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.
Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.
Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.
Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.
The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.
Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.
Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.
Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.
Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.
TEXTBOOKS
Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.
Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.
KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.
Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.
Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.
MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.
Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.
Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.
Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.
eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.
MATH AND SCIENCE
FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.
Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.
Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.
Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.
FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.
Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.
Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.
International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.
Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.
Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.
Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.
The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.
Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.
PLAYS
ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.
Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”
ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.
MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE
Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.
The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.
Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.
Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.
Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.
The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.
Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.
John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.
SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.
Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.
ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.
Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.
Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.
Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.
KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.
Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.
Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.
Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.
Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.
Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.
Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.
Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.
CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.
Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.
HISTORY AND CULTURE
LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.
The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.
Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.
Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.
Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.
RARE BOOKS
Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.
Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.
Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.
2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.
Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.
Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.
Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.
Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.
MYSTERY
MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.
TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.
Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.
POETRY
The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.
Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”
Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.
Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.
Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.
QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.
CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.
PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.
MISC
Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.
World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.
DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.
A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.
Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.
ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.
Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.
Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.
Never use Surfshark VPN
I just wanted to make this post to warn yall about it, I am not a tech genius but I wanted to get a vpn and surfshark was one I knew about so i subscribed to them because it seemed ok, that was where I fucked up.
fast forward a year and now I am trying to cancel my yearly auto-renewing subscription which costs 70 fuckin bucks, didnt find much use in surfshark as it was too laggy when using its vpn services so i go to billing and try to cancel.
there was no cancel button so that was odd, and you cant turn off auto-renew so i figure ill just get rid of my card info so it cant charge me.
i cant or at least i cant figure out how.
I go to help and find the cancellation area after scrolling past why you should keep the subscription and it tells me to contact their live support to cancel, It requires my name and gmail, I know for a fact my gmail is correct but it says its wrong and that my name is wrong no matter how many ways I enter it and I cant find a possible username anywhere on the site i could use. Its for all practical reasons impossible for me to cancel, not just the fact I cant even talk to customer support, but the people on reddit that do, talk to a bot and then the agents take months to actually turn off the subscription so it charges again and there is no refunds.
dont use surfshark VPN
When I was in ninth grade I wanted to challenge what I saw as a very stupid dress code policy (not being allowed to wear spikes regardless of the size or sharpness of the spikes). My dad said to me, “What is your objective?”
He said it over and over. I contemplated that. I wanted to change an unfair dress code. What did I stand to gain? What did I stand to lose? If what I really wanted was to change the dress code, what would be my most effective potential approach? (He also gave me Discourses on the Fall of Rome by Titus Livius, Machiavelli’s magnum opus. Of course he’d already given me The Prince, Five Rings, and The Art of War.)
I ultimately printed out that phrase, coated it in Mod Podge, and clipped it to my bathroom mirror so I would look at it and think about it every day.
What is your objective?
Forget about how you feel. Ask yourself, what do you want to see happen? And then ask, how can you make it happen? Who needs to agree with you? Who has the power to implement this change? What are the points where you have leverage over them? If you use that leverage now, will you impair your ability to use it in the future? Getting what you want is about effectiveness. It is not about being an alpha or a sigma or whatever other bullshit the men’s right whiners are on about now. You won’t find any MRA talking points in Musashi, because they are not relevant.
I had no clear leverage on the dress code issue. My parents were not on the PTA; neither were any of my friend’s parents who liked me. The teachers did not care about this. Ultimately I just wore what I wanted, my patent leather collar from Hot Topic with large but flattened spikes, and I had guessed correctly—the teachers also did not care enough to discipline me.
I often see people on tumblr, mostly the very young, flail around in discourse. They don’t have an objective. They don’t know what they want to achieve, and they have never thought about strategizing and interpersonal effectiveness. No one can get everything they want by being an asshole. You must be able to work with other people, and that includes smiling when you hate them.
Read Machiavelli. Start with The Prince, but then move on to Discourses. Read Musashi’s Five Rings. Read The Art of War. They’re classics for a reason. They can’t cover all situations, but they can do more for how you think about strategizing than anything you’re getting in middle school and high school curricula.
Don’t vote third party unless you can tell me not only what your objective is but also why this action stands a meaningful chance of accomplishing it. Otherwise, back up and approach your strategy from a new angle. I don’t care how angry you are with Biden right now. He knows about it, and he is both trying to do something and not doing enough. I care about what will happen to millions of people if we have another Trump presidency. Look up Ross Perot, and learn from our past. Find your objective. If it is to stop the genocide in Palestine now, call your elected representatives now. They don’t care about emails; they care about phone calls, because they live in the past. I know this because I shadowed a lobbyist, because knowing how power works is critical to using it.
How do you think I have gotten two clinics to start including gender care in their planning?
Start small. Chip away. Keep working. Find your leverage; figure out how and when to effectively use it. Choose your battles, so that you can concentrate on the battle at hand instead of wasting your resources in many directions. Learn from the accumulated wisdom of people who spent their lives learning by doing, by making mistakes, by watching the mistakes of their enemies.
Don’t be a dickhead. Be smarter than I was at 14. Ask yourself: what is your objective?
i know this means absolutely nothing to most people but basically all of the little web game things I've made recently (angels in automata, hex plant growing game, d.a.n.m.a.k.u., life music, sudoku land, the metroidvania style map editor, etc etc etc) are all entirely self-contained individual client-side html files that can be downloaded and run offline and have literally no libraries or frameworks or dependencies, because i'm an insane woman who enjoys hand coding my input handling and display code from scratch in vanilla js and having it all live in one single html file with the game logic and the page structure and the page style all just living and loving together side by side in a universal format that can be run by any web browser on any devixe. i'll even include image files as base64 data-uri strings just to keep every single asset inside the one file.
hot artists don't gatekeep
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
How do you do pixel art animation? What program do you use? These are so beautiful and I really wanna learn! Thank you!
I wrote a free post about my process here, hope you find it useful 🙏
old movies, public domain, classics, other such things: the read-more edition
this is a carry over of my original post but under a read-more for more extensive and readily available editing. updated whenever possible
the purposes of this post continue to be “eclectic” but to be “brief”, is for people who enjoy consuming Media and want to have online resources on hand to find them, especially when they are non-contemporary, non-mainstream, and/or on the obscure side (but not always!). it has evolved far beyond what the title says basically
feel free to send your own resources!
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Fruit will last 3 weeks longer….
Why You Should Keep Fruit In Mason Jars Instead Of The Containers They Come In…….
When you get your fruit home from the grocery store, the first thing you should do is remove it from the plastic containers they’ve come in and recycle them. Next, clean out your sink and fill it with water (you could also use a large bowl). Then, toss in a few tablespoons of distilled vinegar. You’ll then want to submerge your fruit in the water and let it soak for about 10 to 15 minutes. The purpose of this is to get rid of any mold or bacteria on the fruit which is what causes them to go rotten more quickly.
Once the fruit has had a nice soak, remove it from the vinegar water, transfer to a strainer, and rinse with cool water. Leave the fruit out to dry on a tea towel or paper towel. Once dry, transfer the fruit to mason jars and seal up those lids. This is the best way to make your fruit last, particularly berries, which tend to be very prone to mold and bacteria buildup.
And that’s it! Incorporating these few extra steps into preparing and storing fruit can help you eliminate food waste, save money, and keep your fridge stocked with fresh produce for much longer.