headspace-hotel:

headspace-hotel:

headspace-hotel:

headspace-hotel:

headspace-hotel:

fuck i don’t wanna post about politics but its scaring the absolute shit out of me the story of the guy from Maryland with no criminal record who was accidentally sent to an El Salvador mega-prison where inmates are beaten, tortured, and dont have proper hygiene or medical care

like this guy had NO TRIAL OR ANYTHING they just fucking kidnapped him off the street and sent him to a foreign torture prison

El salvador has tens of thousands of people in prison and the leader brags about how horrible conditions are in there. Hundreds of people have died in El Salvador prisons according to the second link up there.

And what’s more, the guy originally ran away from Venezuela because there were gangs trying to kill him.

And it sounds like there’s other people been sent there too and the republicans are defending sending people to foreign torture prison WITHOUT TRIAL??? And Kristi “puppy-shooter” Noem visited the megaprison to film and show off the inmates’ dehumanization and misery

here’s a pdf of a document filed by the ACLU with a lot of information on how they’re making decisions about deporting people

in the first few pages you’ll see they have a “guide” on how to recognize gang members and it’s total bullshit. They have a gallery of tattoos that are supposedly “gang tattoos” but they legitimately just regular tattoos that anyone could have.

and they’re like “members of the gang are usually young men 18-25 who wear clothes associated with sports teams”

i read article about it and some dipshit had commented “don’t you get it? We DON’T CARE if illegals get sent to prison or what happens to them. They’re rapist murdering terrorist thugs. We DON’T CARE. We DON’T CARE.”

That was when I felt the most horrible sense of dread. The display of cruelty and dominance in Kristi Noem’s videos, the luxuriation in humiliating and dehumanizing another person.

It reminded me of when my mom showed me a clip from Tucker Carlson speaking, saying “Watch this. I know this sounds crazy, but I almost think he has some sort of demon in him.” Tucker Carlson was describing a metaphor of Trump as an angry father coming home to his disobedient teenage daughter to beat her. “This is going to hurt you way more than it hurts me!” Tucker Carlson said in the clip, with pure satisfaction and glee. He was experiencing such gratification by this fantasy of humiliating, dominating, and causing pain to someone else, and this fantasy was his political ideal. It really was just like looking a demon square in the face.

A political ideal of domination. Of inflicting pain. Of punishing and hurting and crushing. A politics that craves to see other people suffering and humiliated and treated as lower than shit. And I think the pleasure they take in that feels to them sort of golden, like justice.

We can’t let this thing live in us.

Like I keep thinking of that quote that went around a couple times that talked about the author hearing the statement “Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher.” and instantly feeling this pit of dread open in their stomach with its truth and how dark and horrible that truth was. I wish I could find it again because it had the same effect on me.

@robotics5

It seems to me that for all the hemming and hawing about the Constitution and “rights”, a lot of USAmericans don’t know or care what the Constitution says or what “rights” it actually guarantees, or what those “rights” even mean.

Some right-wingers right now seem to think being entitled to due process is some pussy liberal shit. Stephen Miller for example. That’s right, now the goddamn Magna Carta is too progressive.

(via kitschlet)

mikkeneko:

homunculus-argument:

Hey you all know about that fungus that possesses ants to make them climb on the tip of grass blades in hopes of getting eaten by a cow, so that the fungus can continue its life cycle in the cow’s guts? Because I think that’s the kind of thing that’s wrong with cave divers.

We don’t know what’s down there. We don’t know what’s gotten into their heads that makes them so determined to physically, personally go down there to find out. But I wouldn’t entirely dismiss the possibility that whatever has gotten into them is very invested in getting eaten by whatever is down there.

cave Mouth perfec t size for climb in to n\ap! inside very Soft and Comfort human sleep soundly put human in Cave Mouth. Put Human In Cave Mouth. no problems ever in ccave mouth because good Deep and Coolness for overhot ectotherm mammel. Cvae Mouth yes a place for put human in cave mouth can trust cave for giveing good shelter to human. friend cave

(via petralemaitre)

reasonsforhope:

Solar Farms Transform Chinese Deserts into Thriving Ecosystems

Chinese scientists discover that solar farms in desert regions aren't just generating clean energy – they're creating flourishing ecosystems

Green Fingers

“In an unprecedented transformation of China’s arid landscapes, large-scale solar installations are turning barren deserts into unexpected havens of biodiversity, according to groundbreaking research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The study reveals that solar farms are not only generating clean energy but also catalyzing remarkable ecological restoration in some of the country’s most inhospitable regions.

The research, examining 40 photovoltaic (PV) plants across northern China’s deserts, found that vegetation cover increased by up to 74% in areas with solar installations, even in locations using only natural restoration measures. This unexpected environmental dividend comes as China cements its position as the global leader in solar energy, having added 106 gigawatts of new installations in 2022 alone.

“Artificial ecological measures in the PV plants can reduce environmental damage and promote the condition of fragile desert ecosystems,” says Dr. Benli Liu, lead researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “This yields both ecological and economic benefits.”

The economic implications are substantial. “We’re witnessing a paradigm shift in how we view desert solar installations,” says Professor Zhang Wei, environmental economist at Beijing Normal University. “Our cost-benefit analysis shows that while initial ecological construction costs average $1.5 million per square kilometer, the long-term environmental benefits outweigh these investments by a factor of six within just a decade.” …

“Soil organic carbon content increased by 37.2% in areas under solar panels, and nitrogen levels rose by 24.8%,” reports Dr. Sarah Chen, soil scientist involved in the project. “These improvements are crucial indicators of ecosystem health and sustainability.”

…Climate data from the study sites reveals significant microclimate modifications:

• Average wind speeds reduced by 41.3% under panel arrays
• Soil moisture retention increased by 32.7%
• Ground surface temperature fluctuations decreased by 85%
• Dust storm frequency reduced by 52% in solar farm areas…

The scale of China’s desert solar initiative is staggering. As of 2023, the country has installed over 350 gigawatts of solar capacity, with 30% located in desert regions. These installations cover approximately 6,000 square kilometers of desert terrain, an area larger than Delaware.

“The most surprising finding,” notes Dr. Wang Liu of the Desert Research Institute, “is the exponential increase in insect and bird species. We’ve documented a 312% increase in arthropod diversity and identified 27 new bird species nesting within the solar farms between 2020 and 2023.”

Dr. Yimeng Wang, the study’s lead author, emphasizes the broader implications: “This study provides evidence for evaluating the ecological benefit and planning of large-scale PV farms in deserts.”

The solar installations’ positive impact stems from several factors. The panels act as windbreaks, reducing erosion and creating microhabitats with lower evaporation rates. Perhaps most surprisingly, the routine maintenance of these facilities plays a crucial role in the ecosystem’s revival.

“The periodic cleaning of solar panels, occurring 7-8 times annually, creates consistent water drip lines beneath the panels,” explains Wang. “This inadvertent irrigation system promotes vegetation growth and the development of biological soil crusts, essential for soil stability.” …

Recent economic analysis reveals broader benefits:

• Job creation: 4.7 local jobs per megawatt of installed capacity
• Tourism potential: 12 desert solar sites now offer educational tours
• Agricultural integration: 23% of sites successfully pilot desert agriculture beneath panels
• Carbon reduction: 1.2 million tons CO2 equivalent avoided per gigawatt annually

Dr. Maya Patel, visiting researcher from the International Renewable Energy Agency, emphasizes the global implications: “China’s desert solar model could be replicated in similar environments worldwide. The Sahara alone could theoretically host enough solar capacity to meet global electricity demand four times over while potentially greening up to 20% of the desert.”

The Chinese government has responded by implementing policies promoting “solar energy + sand control” and “solar energy + ecological restoration” initiatives. These efforts have shown promising results, with over 92% of PV plants constructed since 2017 incorporating at least one ecological construction mode.

Studies at facilities like the Qinghai Gonghe Photovoltaic Park demonstrate that areas under solar panels score significantly better in environmental assessments compared to surrounding regions, indicating positive effects on local microclimates.

As the world grapples with dual climate and biodiversity crises, China’s desert solar experiment offers a compelling model for sustainable development. The findings suggest that renewable energy infrastructure, when thoughtfully implemented, can serve as a catalyst for environmental regeneration, potentially transforming the world’s deserts from barren wastelands into productive, life-supporting ecosystems.

“This is no longer just about energy production,” concludes Dr. Liu. “We’re witnessing the birth of a new approach to ecosystem rehabilitation that could transform how we think about desert landscapes globally. The next decade will be crucial as we scale these solutions to meet both our climate and biodiversity goals.””

-via Green Fingers, January 13, 2025

(via petralemaitre)

that-house:

that-house:

This is your captain speaking and yeah we’re not landing. I just feel like we’ve got a really good thing up here and I don’t want to ruin it. This is my home and you are my people

We never have to go back

(via beyoursledgehammer)

crazysodomite:

‘netizen’ cutest word for internet user. It’s the net and we’re living here together ….

(via angelictroublemaker)

byjove:

sometimes I get a dogwater take on one of my posts and I open up the person’s bio and the first word is ‘atheist’ and I’m like. ah. that’s why. as a transgender bisexual man who grew up in the Bible Belt and now considers myself an agnostic, there are truly some atheists who rival evangelicals in terms of obnoxious dismissive behavior and superiority complexes. not believing in a higher power? fine, good, some of the best people I’ve ever known are atheists. treating any and every religious belief/tennet as useless ignorant superstition and thinking you’re the only person on the planet who is correct? dude, c’mon, fuck you.

and I get it, there are a lot of religious doctrines that I think are inherently harmful and have been turned against me as a gay person in a Christian area. I don’t think religion is evil. I think it’s a tool people use to help them navigate life. sometimes that tool is bad and it hurts them and others. sometimes it’s good and people do great things because of it. I’m not better than other people because I do not lean on this tool as heavily/at all.

(via goodnightmoonvale)

kafk-a:

Mary Ruefle, ‘The Tenor of Your Yes’

(via some-stars)

rederiswrites:

geardrops:

rederiswrites:

rederiswrites:

Honestly I should talk about the ace experience more. I don’t see enough. Like–obviously it’s dehumanizing to be repeatedly compared to robots or aliens but uh…sometimes it feels like that?? 

My husband will get all horny while I’m, I don’t know, changing out of sweaty gardening clothes. And I’ll be like, “But we have to make lunch?? I stink? Now is not a good time?? Logic?” And clearly it’s not about logic to him. He is experiencing the entire scenario very differently. And I’m here like, 

Originally posted by lebhetyse

Or the times where you realize that like, having an actual physiological reaction to attractive people is not some enculturated metaphor, and people are actually doing that all around you all the time, and you’re like, Ah, clearly my studies of human culture have been incomplete. I have missed a critical psychosocial component. Many things now appear in a different light. *takes notes on holopad*

The notes on this post are just a shitload of aces going…I don’t get it. Or sometimes for a bit under very special circumstances I get it, or almost get it, and then I’m like “Wow this is a huge energy drain; you guys live like this?” Or just, “Totally baffling truly an alien species why would you lick someone?” And I am feeling the kinship in this here post.

a friend of mine once said “Wow! You must get so much done!”

to which i replied “No, no, I still have depression.”

I made this post two years ago and this is maybe the funniest addition in all that time.

(via beyoursledgehammer)

catboybiologist:

asexualzoro:

catboybiologist:

catboybiologist:

catboybiologist:

I’m sorry I’m going fucking insane over trans people in sports issues the anti trans crowd has lost the fucking plot and then has the audacity to act like its the trannies who are ridiculous

I used to be of the “well the sports issue isn’t really important to me its w/e I just don’t want it to be a gateway into other transphobia” but oh my fucking god we are so far gone. The fencing shit is sending me over the edge. What the fuck.

I can’t even articulate my words so I’m just going to tell a story in screenshots

I am so fucking tired of being gaslit about this

I’m also still so fucking pissed that we have to include “ooo the trans fencer only finished in X place” because its a reminder that trans women will never be allowed to excel at anything in the public eye without being cut down. Fuck OFF

i hope you don’t mind me adding to this post op but i’ve got a sorta personal connection to this story. for ppl who do not know this about me, ive been fencing for like five years and am trans. i also used to fence in the same circles as this woman

this woman—stephanie turner is her name, because i think people should know it so this shit can ruin her life—regularly fences cis men and wins because fencing is fucking co-ed

i know that is in the screenshots already, but what i can add which isn’t in the screenshot is that i personally know and have fenced some of the people listed in that “competition history” screenshot, including some of the cis men which she beat. i know from fencing them myself that these guys are good, smart, capable fencers

that said, even if i didn’t know them, i could tell you a lot of these guys are solid. do you see that column labeled “rating”? being rated means they’ve placed very well or won medals at prestigious or decently sized tournaments—E is the lowest rating (but still difficult to get) and ratings go up to A (and U means unrated). if you look, you can see she beat a few rated fencers in that screenshot, some of them male!

another thing i know about stephanie turner is that she fences at a club my friend’s brother works at. she regularly beats said brother, who is 6’4 and 200lbs. i’ve never met this brother, but if he’s anything like my friend, he’s a damn good fencer with years of experience. stephanie turner is GOOD. per my friend, she probably would have won the bout she took a knee on. she really did not need to pull shit transphobic shit and i guarantee she knows it.

all this shit about fencing cis men really does not matter, to be clear. being a woman beating men doesn’t make stephanie a good fencer—it doesn’t even make her a notable fencer. every afab fencer who is good enough to beat other fencers beats amab fencers. the first fencer i beat as an afab person was a cis man who started the sport at the same time as me just bc we were at the same general level. because again, fencing is co-ed. i just am explaining all this to show how damn stupid dying on this hill is (and the fact she for sure knows how damn pointless and hateful it is)

because fencing is NOT a strength sport! being stronger or taller than your opponent, like how a cis man would stereotypically be vs a cis woman, isn’t necessarily an advantage—strength can absolutely fuck you up if you don’t know how to manage it, and if you know how to use it, being shorter than your opponents can actually be an advantage

if anything, fencing a stamina sport, which something you can very much train no matter your gender if you put in the work. more than anything to do with strength or speed, though, fencing is a strategy sport. there is really no reason to gender segregate it. a lot of tournaments do, but plenty tournaments DON’T, and most clubs you go to for practice and drills and learning fencing will be co-ed and have you constantly fencing against “opposite sex” fencers

(half related—one of the best foils on my fencing team is a trans woman who sometimes fences in the men’s brackets in tournaments and regularly beats cis men)

if stephanie turner is a good fencer—which she definitely is—she knows all of this. that fencing is more about stamina, that strength and height mean nothing, that the only thing that really matters is your strategy.

stephanie turner was literally just doing this to be an asshole. the fact she’s getting money for it is fucking disgusting. i hope she faces some damn consequences for this shit, because it’s such stupid, hateful bullshit, especially for a sport where that “biological advantage” shit really and truly does not matter

i do want to end this addition on a nice note tho, so i want to add: a few days after this story broke—this weekend, actually—i attended a two day tournament as a spectator. while it wasn’t everywhere, i definitely saw a lot of refs and staff wearing trans pride/support pins, as well as a few people in attendance wearing trans supportive shirts and accessories. all of the people ive spoken to in the fencing world about this—which is quite a lot—have thought it both appalling and monumentally stupid, and im hoping that will lead to consequences for stephanie turner and anyone else who tries to follow in her bullshit idiot footsteps

I don’t have anything to add, but this is more insight than I could ever have so I’m RBing for visiblity

(via petralemaitre)

estrogenesis-eeveeangelion:

seafossilqueen:

I am incredibly amused by these random Japanese women for scale with prehistoric creatures

these are lesbian couples

(via beyoursledgehammer)

lemb0y:

This is the only dragon age character i know

(via captainshakespear)

bogleech:

just7frogsinapeoplesuit:

just7frogsinapeoplesuit:

just7frogsinapeoplesuit:

just7frogsinapeoplesuit:

bogleech:

Young people have GOT to stop talking about conservatives like they’re scary menacing monsters. Yes the policies they back are horrifically destructive but that’s entirely because of how individually stupid, fearful, emotionally stunted, weak willed and catastrophically gullible they are. That all is what made them become right wing to begin with. Just the most easily manipulated zombie sheep on earth.

People I have encountered in the past month who voted for Tr*mp include:

- Homeless girl who asked for my pronouns immediately and used them correctly every time

- Hispanic woman with a large family who just got her citizenship and is still working on her English

Neither of these women understood what they were supporting, they mostly saw ads that he was going to reduce grocery prices and voted based on that. Neither of them have consistent access to information or any relevant political education, nor the time, money, or energy to seek it out because they are focused on surviving.

A vast amount of republican voters are exactly the same, and it’s a direct result of the GOP strategically denying them resources. We cannot move forward if you throw people to the curb for not knowing any better.

I need to emphasize that these people are “stupid, fearful, emotionally stunted, weak willed and catastrophically gullible” because they have been forcefully kept in poverty without access to proper education, therapy, or community support and fed fearmongering propaganda their entire lives without anyone ever showing them life can be better. They are traumatized and exhausted and a lot of them are trapped in religious cults.

They are like this because the GOP has meticulously engineered huge swaths of the country to be that way. It is not an inherent personal failing and it is very likely you would be the same had you grown up in the same circumstances.

You do not have to shake hands with bigots, but you need to have compassion and understanding for people who have not yet been given the resources and political understanding you have.

I’m not done here actually. Dehumanization like “zombie sheep” is in direct opposition to the kinds of strategies we are going to need to survive after January 6th. Yes, these people voted for something horrific, but they are still people and as things get bad most of them are going to be negatively impacted– and when that happens we need to be there to support them because that is how we get them to join us and fight back. Everything that makes them susceptible to right-wing propaganda will work in our favor in the right circumstances.

We simply will not get anywhere if we are determined to not see people we hate as people. Humans can learn and grow, zombie sheep cannot.

ETA: Since people are misconstruing my meaning here, we punch fascists on sight. But if someone says “I didn’t realize this would happen when I voted for the fascists” or there’s even a single crack in their loyalty you scoop them up ASAP no matter how much you want to toss them off a cliff because with a bit of compassion you can get them to turn against the fascists, and that is how we win.

I was going to be done with this post, but just came across something I want to add because it’s a lens anyone who primarily interacts with politics online is completely missing:

ALT

This is the heart of what I was trying to get across. People are not black-or-white, they’re messy and diverse and a lot more malleable than you might think. If you gauge party politics by what you see online and in the media you do not understand the average American at all.

If you see right-wing voters as a distinct class of people it just shows that you exist in a bubble. Only people with a certain level of education and access to information talk about politics the way it’s discussed on the internet, and if you refuse to exit that bubble out of fear and hatred you will not be able to successfully organize resistance to the coming administration.

These replies meant well but they miss the point, we are absolutely dealing with a fanatical hive minded cult here. Zombie and Sheep are completely appropriate euphemisms for people who willingly chose not to think for themselves, and if Trump says the sky is green then his whole barking, flopping gaggle of drunken seals will not only immediately believe the sky is green, they will also believe you’re a baby-eating commie satanist if you think it’s ever been blue.

I’m just going to copy/paste what I already added before:

-

“The number of people who seriously didn’t know anything other than "he said he’d fix the economy” can’t be that common. And if you ever heard him speak, you heard him define “fixing the economy” as “shutting down the border,” because his single biggest campaign tool has been the complete and utter lie that “illegals” are a significant drain on the economy or that they’re on the rise. Both are false. The vast, vast majority of his supporters, I’d say well over 99%, maybe more like several hundred to one, hold at least one, normally several of the following beliefs:

• That there are bloodthirsty foreign devils deliberately invading at all times from the Southern border, and they can be blamed for the financial struggles of the “legal” citizens.
• Anyone outside the traditional gender norms is an insatiable pervert and wants to corrupt innocent children.
• Those who get abortions or in some cases even use birth control are murderers and filthy whores.
• People in poverty are just lazy druggies who didn’t care or try hard enough and brought all of their suffering on themselves.
• The Disabled and in fact anyone unable to just work, work, work and work for at least some retail shit are a burden to be scorned.
• Everyone bombed and killed by the U.S. military or any of its allied countries is always either a terrorist or an acceptable sacrifice in the fight against terrorists.
• Police brutality is overstated and most people hurt or killed by cops did something to deserve it, but most especially minorities, who may or may not be genetically predisposed to crime.
• An idea that Jewish people secretly control the world through a vast interconnected conspiracy that may also involve demon worship and child trafficking.
• Doctors and scientists are liars who drain money from the economy and are wrong about everything that might inconvenience a rich man.
• Non-Christians of any kind are degenerate and dangerous.

Trump’s entire platform, and that of all other GOP candidates these days, is a deliberately fuzzy promise to act on any or all of these hysterical prejudices. He’s most consistent about the first one and made it pretty much the central pillar of his whole campaign, because the paranoia over an imaginary “border crisis” is by far the most popular culture war uniting the right. Which is pretty fucking sad considering just how utterly fabricated it is, and how effortless it is to find that out in only seconds. However, not all conservatives subscribe to all of the same moral panics at the same time, so right wing influencers spend a lot of time weeping and gnashing over “liberalism” or “socialism” or this word that rhymes with “yoke” so that every one of their stupid, angry grovelers can read into it as a promise to defeat whatever it is those words mean in their mushy fucking brains. The single most important thing to understand of all, though, is that the lies are not what make them hate people. They already wanted to hate those people. The lies are concocted after the fact to justify the deeds they want to commit. They are stupid, scared, gullible and weak but they are also willfully spiteful with a massive punishment fetish, so when you get enough of them together they can actually wreak havoc. The point of my original post was that they’re not anything as cool or impressive as evil nefarious villains. They’re more comparable to a mindless but inexorable flood of sewage.

-

I will also add: almost all of them categorize other human beings as “illegal aliens,” and to them those aren’t just words, but an actual demographic label they want to force on anyone who didn’t fill out all the right forms, which they want enforced as an unforgivable crime.

Getting upset that I turn around and throw “dehoominizing langwidge” back at them is honestly a little ridiculous and even kind of uncomfortable, like if you saw a guy beating his wife and patted him gently on the back to remind him he matters. No he doesn’t! Put a knife in that hand first! Referring to violent xenophobes as zombies or animals or vermin shouldn’t bother you any more than calling them shitheads or assholes or even just jerks, because all possible words and language are completely inconsequential compared to their actual efforts at legislative dehumanization.

That’s what “dehumanization” actually is. Not calling someone a dog or a ghoul in words, which is merely an expression of how ugly their behavior has become. Dehumanization is the actual treatment, by action, of other people as less worthy of basic rights and that is what they set out to do every single day. Like are some of you seriously that sheltered and naive. Yeesh. If you’re personally acquainted with that one-in-a-million kind-hearted well meaning oaf who ignorantly supports the right wing out of innocent childlike ignorance, congrats but it doesn’t change a thing and maybe your poor sweet gentle pet maga should have cared enough to know what they were voting for?

wizardshark:

jame7t:

evilscientist3:

Theyre called draculas because they drank u. La

Did anyone else hear just one single angelic note

(via edgebug)

emiliaoleary:

Hooking rugs that look like dogs

Here’s how I do it:

The process I use is called rug hooking (not latch hook or punch needle or tufting, though it is the forerunner of the latter two techniques). Rugs are hooked by pulling loops of fabric strips or yarn through the holes of a base fabric with a coarse open weave, like burlap, or linen, or rug warp. The loops are pulled through the fabric with a squat-handled hook whose business end is shaped like a crochet hook.  There are no knots and the loops aren’t sewed down in any way.  The whole thing stays put just by the tension of all those loops packed together in the weave of the foundation fabric.

This isn’t a true detailed tutorial but a walk-through of my particular process. The same information is on my web page, emilyoleary.com .

I hook with yarn, rather than with cut strips of wool fabric, which is what many rug hookers use.  I can get a looser, more organic distribution of loops with yarn than I could with wool strips, which are hooked in neat lines. 

Mostly I use wool yarn. In terms of yarn weight, I can use DK, worsted, or Aran.  If I’m using thicker yarn, I leave more holes un-hooked; if I’m using finer yarn, I hook more densely or double up lengths of it.  I particularly like using single ply yarns (like Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride or Malabrigo Worsted).  I don’t keep count, but I think I usually use around two dozen types and colors of yarn per dog.  

This is my yarn wall in my apartment. Mostly brown and gray yarn!

I start from a small drawing in my sketchbook, then I head to FedEx office to use a copy machine, blowing up the drawing repeatedly and experimenting with how big the dog rug should be. 

After transferring the image onto my linen, I immediately go over it with Sharpie, because the Saral is really difficult to see and really easy to rub off.

The rug is held taut by a PVC quilting frame that I set on my lap.

I push my hook down through the fabric with my right hand and my left hand stays below the fabric and guides the yarn while I pull it up and through with the hook. Not every hole in the fabric is hooked. Hooking every hole would make the rug too dense. I do hook pretty densely, though– If you pick up one of my rugs you’ll see they have a slight curl to them, which is because they’re hooked pretty tight. I’m using all different weights and types of yarn, so it’s a challenge to keep the overall tension even.

I hook my loops at varying heights to create a very low relief. Sometimes I trim the loops to make them fluffier or wispier or to shape a particular part. I look at a reference photo while I work and pull out and redo sections a lot.

My q-snap frame can accommodate the growing dog rug. I have extenders to make it bigger and I can clamp around my hooking.

The back of a rug looks like lines of little stitches. The lines are little worm trails snaking around because lines of hooking are not supposed to cross over each other. It’s important to start a new length of yarn rather than cross over a stitch you already made! I read this when I first started and took it to heart. It makes it much easier to undo and redo hooking if you have to (and I redo sections A Lot). It also keeps the back from getting too bulky and resulting in uneven wear on the back of a functional rug that gets floor use.

When I’m done hooking everything I turn the rug over and brush watered-down Sobo glue on the edges of the dog, making sure to get one or two of the outermost lines of hooking. I do a couple coats of this thinned out glue. I’m careful not to use so much that it seeps to the front of the rug. When the glue is dry I cut the rug out, but I don’t cut so close that the loops don’t have any linen to keep them in.

​
It generally takes me at least several months to finish one dog rug. My hooking frame and yarn bag are very portable (though bulky) so I can hook out and about at coffee shops or the library or a brewery if there’s enough space and light.

Hooking in the wild makes me an ambassador for making things in general and rug hooking in particular. I answer people’s questions and always emphasize how relatively easy it is to get started hooking. Sometimes I get anxious that other people will hook rugs that look like mine but better, but I think that working in a traditional medium means you should share your knowledge for the good of the craft.

(via edgebug)

alder-knight:

hey I just updated Firefox and discovered that they added some AI “features” - thought I’d share this set of instructions which I used to disable them all

How to Disable and Remove All AI Features in Mozilla Firefox

(there are two ways, one that’s quite simple via the settings and one that’s easy to do but requires accessing a more high-level control panel in the browser)

(via boppinrobin)