into the void

People always ask me how I learn languages! Well, I sit down and study. Sometimes I stand up and study. And no, there are no shortcuts. You actually have to engage with a language for hours to learn it. Even people who learn how to speak languages by speaking have to go up to other people and talk at length. Also, knowing how to speak 20 phrases you've memorized is not speaking a language. That's what people selling phrasebooks and premium study plans on youtube wants you to believe. Sorry. It actually takes years for you to become good at a target language. You'll just have to find a way to make those years bearable. Sorry again.

04.05.25

fuck famous monuments and star wars ships or whatever. when will lego make egyptian tomb model sets for us so i can make fun model of granary with scribes

“Stay behind me.”

“Stop trying to protect m-“

“Kill the ones I miss”

Faile thought that was so hot. And she was right.

no i don't want you to redirect me to your app i want to look at recipe

i am not going to a secondary location with you one of us dies here

making friends on tumblr dot com like

One of my favorite things about Put Baby In Pelican Mouth is that not only does the pelican have the intelligence necessary to speak human language but also knows how to lie, suggesting it has a theory of mind, yet not enough to understand that no one is going to put baby in pelican mouth.

To be entirely fair to the pelican, I have seen humans do much, much dumber things with their infants. The park rangers in Louisiana ha e to regularly tell people to not put their babies on the ground next to the gators for a pic.

In fact, it could be argued that the peculiar grammar used by the pelican in the Put Baby In Pelican Mouth post is deliberate, like how phishers use major grammar errors in their messages so that people too smart for the scam (or smart enough to report them) ignore the emails and the scammer can focus on the most likely marks.

Regardless, the pelican is right: there is absolutely someone dumb enough to put a baby in its mouth because it asked politely. Probably dozens on that beach alone.

Put baby in pelican mouth for Instagram photo. Facebook photo of baby in pelican mouth for many likes and also happy asleep baby. So cute baby in pelican mouth for video on TikTok. Youtube short of baby so cute in soft pelican mouth for so many views to Youtube channel. Baby in pelican mouth challenge.

attention this is your captain speaking chag sameach pesach to all celebrating and a reminder do not open the airlock to greet elijah the vulcan rabbinic council ruled that opening the door to the room where the seder is occurring is sufficient elijah can get on a starship just fine himself he just likes to be personally invited in to your seder we dont need another incident like last year thank you

Hello everybody with summer fast approaching here is your regular reminder that:

If you're swimming in the ocean, also consider looking for coral-reef-safe sunscreen! Some sunscreens are toxic to coral and in popular swimming destinations it adds up

They need to invent more fake celebrities like Hatsune Miku and Gorillaz and the Muppets because it's genuinely the most sustainable way to maintain a parasocial relationship with the entertainer class.

Kermit the Frog can never get canceled because Kermit the Frog has no agency or personhood beyond what he is imbued with by the collective labor of puppeteers, voice actors, singers, and writers. He is, along with these other examples, effectively a celebrity by gestalt. He has transcended the inherit instability of the celebrity class through diffusion of responsibility for his personhood. He is a god.

when did “lmao” become shorthand or w/e for “i’m fucking suffering”

lamenting my anguish online

I spent longer than I would care to admit today making tiny corsets from "free" or public domain patterns and construction paper. Each one is about the size of my hand (pattern was sized to fit on an 8 1/2" by 11" piece of paper).

This one is from Tygodnik Mód 1869, pattern floating around on Pinterest. Really interesting three piece design.

This one is from Die Frauenwelt 1874, also floating around on Pinterest. I like the simple two piece body with gores for shaping, much easier to alter than seams. Note how this cups the stomach rather than flaring out? The longer line dresses of the 1870s required corsets to have more structure below the waist, opposed to 1860s styles that ended there.

A little later on, this is from a 1878 patent. I made this mostly because it combines the gores and full length pieces. I love the side profile, front and back, not so much.

These next two are both from "Complete Guide to Ladies Garment Cutting" c. 1883.

I think this one has the "best" shape which is interesting since it specifies it is for stout ladies lol. The back is very flat too which surprises me, I'd expect there to be more volume there to support the bustle.

This one I made mostly because it doesn't have gores and is different for that era. The pieces didn't line up well and it feels almost like this should begin below the bust? That top line is SO ODD.

But! The side profile and volume over the hips is pretty great. Something to revisit eventually, maybe, it will just require more work.

The next three are from the Symington Corset archive which is very fun to look through if you never have before! A hundred+ original patterns from the 1890s.

I picked three, starting with this earlier design which didn't end up being very shapely at all. I wonder if this is for juniors? This was an instant "no" for me, has no redeeming qualities for what I want in an 1890s corset. Maybe for the 1920s, lol...

(edit; I wonder if what I thought were narrow bones in the seams is actually cord? making it even more lightweight in terms of support.)

I love the front and back of this sooo much. It is so waspy and easier than the others to alter IMO given the simplicity of the piecing. It is very straight in the back, though, which probably won't work for me.

Lastly, is this guy. Which I think is the best rounded--this could work for the 80s and 90s. I like the side profile of this a lot but not so much the front. I also feel like the narrow pieces with centered bones will be harder to alter than the wider pieces shown above. But the back slope on this one would be better for me and the rise on the hips looks more comfortable.

This was a fun little test! Some looked very different than I expected based on how they looked flat and gives me some insight on which to use as a base for altering to my measurements.

Which is your favorite?

I’d like to live through a week that’s not a whole new verse of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

#dated three four years ago is really what makes this one#sorry op if you still have notifications on for this one#but hoo-wee did you hit on the sentiment of the decade

I do have notifications still on for this post because I love the sense of community it gives me. We're all just staring at each other blankly and occasionally screaming.

Also for the people who have post dates turned on and just go JESUS CHRIST FOUR YEARS AGO?!

happy first contact day! Thought I would re-cap Solkar’s thought process during this momentous historical moment since vulcans kiss with their hands. 

star trek heritage post (April 5th, 2020)

Friendly reminder that the word cabal is inherently antisemitic

Ive said this before but swear the biggest skill to learn as an adult is how to resist high-pressure sales tactics. You do NOT have to answer questions with anything other than "Sorry I'm not interested." No matter how nice they are or no matter how many follow up questions they ask or even how agitated they get when you stand your ground. Just keep saying I'm not interested. Don't answer their questions. Don't give them an opening to try to push back on your reasons. Be a fucking brick wall of I'm not interested.

When we bought our car, I told Sean to let me handle it. I walked in and said "We have X for a down payment and cannot pay more than Y in monthly payments." My Y number had some leeway, but I didn't mention that.

First thing the sales guy did after I laid down the rules was turn to Sean and go, "What's your number?" And Sean said. "Oh, no, you negotiate with Gayle."

So, strike one for the sales guy. Could not divide and conquer us by implying THE MAN would not surprised at what I laid down.

Sales guy then had to confer with his manager and left us at his desk for several minutes. I have a vague recollection (this was 16 years ago) of Sean and I amusing ourselves doing bits about the other people there to look at cars. I am sure we did not give off the stressed or nervous energy they were hoping for.

Guy comes back. His first offer is fifty dollars a month more than I told him we could pay. I looked at him and said "I gave you our upper limit."

"Well, but what's another 50 bucks a month?"

"Something I can't afford."

He didn't know what to do with my open and unashamed admittal that I had a budget because my money was finite.

He went back to talk to the manager again.

It took two more rounds of "I told you what I can afford" before he finally came back 20 bucks under what I'd stated as my max.

The trick to resisting high-stress sales tactics is doing the math at home, knowing exactly what you can afford, and then walking into the room and stating that number minus 15%. Then refusing to budge from that number. Never, ever, meet then where they want. Always meet them where you want. Because at the end of the day, you can walk away and go somewhere else and say "I told the people at Z what my terms were, and they refused to work with me. Here are my terms. Meet them, and you make a sale today."