Please be aware this also exists in PowerPoint (turn it off the same way), and I wouldn't be surprised if it exists in all Microsoft products - so be safe and check your privacy settings in all MS products.

One of the stranger things about training brand new nurses is explaining how to min max small talk. It feels very weird to coach people on how to chat.

if I make and post an insanely detailed powerpoint on the twenty different equations I run mentally during casual conversation to make it flow better, everyone has to say that it's sexy and cool and not weird at all

remember, everyone promised to be cool! also disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer assume I said all the things you'd say to be like "i know human interaction is complicated, i know some of what i listed here would be very annoying to some people," and all that

This is so amazing that, through the miracle of Google Lens (and, okay, a fair amount of boggling at the limitations of Tumblr's lack of support for basic HTML), I present:

An accessible text-only version of the slides, with image descriptions!

(edit: Tumblr has decided to eat the indents on the bulleted lists! I have added → to indicate that certain bullets are meant to be indented from others! WTF Tumblr!?!?! I'm very sorry to screen reader users who now may have to listen to multiple "right arrow right arrow" in some spots (and if there's something better I can do, please let me know). However since the formatting was fucked anyway I've added a readmore, at least.)

For some reason, it never occurred to me that Project Gutenberg would have public domain old cookbooks. This is BRILLIANT. There’s a 1953 cranberry recipe pamphlet and a suffrage cookbook from 1915 and a translation of Apicus’s guide to food in Imperial Rome and a whole bunch of other fascinating old cookbooks, many pre-1800. Treasure trove!

I love you for sharing this!!!

For more old cookbooks, Michigan State University has 76 of their historical cookbooks scanned and searchable at Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project.

For even older recipes, check out Gode Cookery.  They list medieval and Renaissance cooking instructions and translate the recipes for you into measurable amounts and all.

I have have have to mention Miss Leslie. I learned so much about cooking from that book, even if a lot of it is outdated.

Also, Forme of Cury is great fun, if you can muddle through the Middle English (Gode Cookery has translations and adaptions of some of the recipes from this).

I’ll always take an opportunity to remind people of Barkham Burroughs’ Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, which also contains recipes

Spent the day attempting to get half-decent screenshots of Joe's stupid sword.

Bonus:

Annoyingly much better shots of Nicky's stupid sword

SURPRISE! I published a new story!

Hello, Tumblr! A little over a year ago I finished a retelling of The Girl without Hands, my most beloathed fairy tale. I had no idea what to do with it, since it was too long to pitch as a short story, but too short to do much else with. Obviously the only thing to do was ignore it for a full year.

I'm not ignoring it anymore.

Daisy and the Devil is a 9500 word gen story about a girl triumphing over her father's bad decisions with the help of her mother, a witch, and her own wits. It's available from my webstore for $1.99, or as a download for my $5/month Patrons. I'm treating this as a bit of an experiment and only offering it in those two places. Long-term I hope to have enough works to publish a full book of short stories and novelettes, but in the meantime I think people should get to read it if they want to!

I also compiled the ebook itself with Calibre for the first time, so there's a lot of things happening with Daisy and the Devil that are new and of which I'm quite proud.

Happy Monday! Enjoy!

P.S. Patrons got the news about this story first. My newsletter subscribers got it second. If you'd like to make sure you don't miss my book announcements in the chaos of social media, you can follow me in either place!

Daisy and the Devil has:

👿 The Devil 😬 An Incompetent Man 🧙‍♀️ A Witch 📃 Contract Law

which are all VERY SCARY and therefore combine to make it a perfect Halloween read! Get it from my webstore for $1.99!

scarlettgaleauthor.com/shop/ebooks

i thought my laptop was on its last leg because it was running at six billion degrees and using 100% disk space at all times and then i turned off shadows and some other windows effects and it was immediately cured. i just did the same to my roommate's computer and its performance issues were also immediately cured. okay. i guess.

so i guess if you have creaky freezy windows 10/11 try searching "advanced system settings", go to performance settings, and uncheck "show shadows under windows" and anything else you don't want. hope that helps someone else.

hey this is apparently helping a lot of people! adding that on top of this you can also go to settings > personalization > colors and turn off transparency to also boost performance. this wasn't the Big Fix for me but might as well do that too if you're trying to optimize.

past a certain note threshold on tumblr posts you unlock a bloodborne-esque insight and the strange lives of this site's users become visible to you

(x)

we fucking found them?

Ok I know we joke about this but I just went to the settings and first clicked "adjust for best performance" and then re-checked only 1 box:

"Smooth edges of screen fonts"

My computer was running hot before I turned everything off; the office I'm in is very warm, I could feel the heat of my CPU through the keyboard. The fans were going, not as loud as they usually get, but they were still blasting.

Y'all.

I can barely feel the warmth through the keyboard now. It's been like 2 minutes. The fan is nearly silent.

Click the Windows key and start typing "System settings", and "View Advanced system settings" will pop up. Then click "Settings" under Performance:

Then you'll see this:

TURN IT ALL OFF.

I turned "Show window contents while dragging" and then turned that off again. It's up to you.

FUCKING THANK YOU.

It’s crazy how people from 1791 and 2024 both know how it feels when Mozart drops a new track

Because context.

wake up babe new mozart track just dropped

losing it over this comment

Ok, quick tutorial on how to pronounce Quỳnh's name from a Vietnamese because I don't like hearing it being butchered. Start with Queen and King. Now the 'nh' at the end in this case is no different than the 'ng' in English. So it's Qu + ing.

Srap that, you want something faster? Say Kwing real quick, done.

Next, remember how Geralt from The Witcher keeps saying Hmmm with a deep voice? Yeah, say Quynh in that same tone and you should be saying Quỳnh perfectly

This is the best description I’ve heard for this method, I always thought it was bullshit because I never heard a description that actually explained how to do this other than “tap your head 20 times”.

I have anxiety-induced hissing, which sounds/feels different from sound-induced tinnitus (which I have also experience). Sound-based tinnitus actually sounds like you’re “hearing” something in your ears, whilst the hissing I have feels like it’s “inside my head”, if that makes sense. But this technique still helps!!

Here’s a visual I found because I couldn’t understand the instructions well

My ringing just went away for the first time in years. What is this blissful quiet.

wait wait i gotta try this, i don’t think i’ve had Actual Silence since i was like 5

HOW THE FUCK

Reblogging to save a life, and also because, even if you don’t have tinnitus, this is totally worth trying if you like new sensory experiences.  

Just showed this to my dad, and in his words, “The cicadas are still there, but the train is gone.”

I can’t believe it. It turned the volume down on my cicadas (what a perfect way to describe it—cicada season is when everyone gets a taste of tinnitus) for about two minutes.

yes! temporary relief from the eternal fax machine in our skull

Chapter Spotlight 2:

"Mo Xiang Tong Xiu and Chaotic Authorship in the Internet Era" by Yang Lai

What drew you to this topic?

The disputes around the author, which had caused so many quarrels and conflicts within the Chinese danmei community.

Was there anything you were surprised to discover while researching?

Yes. I examined the posts from 2014 to 2020 from the online platforms used by Chinese danmei fans, and I was surprised to find that almost all of the major disputes revolved and developed around the issue of authorship. That is how this essay came to be.

(FAQ) (all posts on Catching Chen Qing Ling)

We are super excited to announce that the CFP that was going around back in the day is here! 

More information forthcoming, but for now, you can catch our listing on Peter Lang's page.

By the way, you can improve your executive function. You can literally build it like a muscle.

Yes, even if you're neurodivergent. I don't have ADHD, but it is allegedly a thing with ADHD as well. And I am autistic, and after a bunch of nerve damage (severe enough that I was basically housebound for 6 months), I had to completely rebuild my ability to get my brain to Do Things from what felt like nearly scratch.

This is specifically from ADDitude magazine, so written specifically for ADHD (and while focused in large part on kids, also definitely includes adults and adult activities):

Here's a link on this for autism (though as an editor wow did that title need an editor lol):

Resources on this aren't great because they're mainly aimed at neurotypical therapists or parents of neurdivergent children. There's worksheets you can do that help a lot too or thought work you can do to sort of build the neuro-infrastructure for tasks.

But a lot of the stuff is just like. fun. Pulling from both the first article and my own experience:

Things can be easier. You might always have a disability around this (I certainly always will), but it can be easier. You do not have to be this stuck forever.

I hate that thing some people do where it's like. "I left my wallet on the table to see if you'd say anything" or "I wanted to see if you'd wash the car if I stopped doing it"

Cause like

I dont know about anyone else

But I am perpetually hovering three inches above the strong subconscious belief that everyone knows what they're doing at all times except me, so if you change your normal patterns and I notice, then I will assume it is an intentional choice with a thought-out plan behind it and I will avoid interfering

And if I don't notice, because I won't, because why would I, because not much bothers me and if you don't say anything to indicate you are bothered then how would I KNOW

Alternatives to experimenting on me like a lab rat when you suspect me of being inconsiderate:

For anyone who hasn't seen them before, Hidden Search Operators are handy tricks you can use when you're either searching or filtering AO3.

summary: string is a generic way of explaining that you can search AO3 for a specific word that appears in a summary. You can do this from the search bar in the header, from the Any Field box at the top of the Advanced Search form, or from the Search Within Results box at the bottom of the filter menu.

Examples:

You need to put quotation marks around your search term if it is more than one word. The quotes make sure that the site searches for those two words together.

The other two operators listed work best in the Search Within Results box.

expected_number_of_chapters: 1 will return results where every fic has only 1 chapter currently posted.

You can use expected_number_of_chapters: -1 if you want results where every fic has more than 1 chapter currently posted.

otp:true will return results where there is only 1 relationship tag on the fic. If you want results where there are 2+ relationship tags (and no fics with only 1 relationship tag) then you can use otp:false

I hate that I’m always trying to find cool biology themed stuff to wear but all the “nature inspired” clothing companies just have like two crossed arrows or a minimalistic mountain on a sweatshirt. Fucking lame, that’s barely even nature-adjacent. Put the life cycle of a salamander on a jacket, put hyena skeleton patterns on leggings, put a damn field guide of birds of prey on a peacoat and THEN you can have my money. Do NOT give me a shirt with a leaf on it that says “stay wild” or some bullshit I would much prefer clothing that broadcasts to everyone around me how many teeth an adult Jaguar has or how some pitcher plants can catch and digest rats.

recommendations from the notes :)

CM MENTION!!!!!! thanks so much :-)

here's a few more great nature themed small biz shops for you to check out!

MOTEL777 nature goodies with a cryptic twist

Curlworks cute critters with a hint of silly

Fossilforager especially good if you're a bug or amphibian fan

Quailtea Goods wide range of animal art including mythical ones!

Loonpflug specialty on plants and insects!

Come support some cool small businesses for your nature inspired shopping! 🌟🍁

Here is a list I’ve accumulated over time!

Solstice Handmade fungi, arthropods, and various other animals

The Vet Med Artist mostly stickers/prints but they have a hoodie. Ink art exploring veterinary medicine

Laura Wolf Lots of silly bird art (prints through RB)

The Lincoln Forest national park apparel

Fernecreative more prints than apparel but Ferne illustrates (mostly British) wildlife

Coywolf Collections neat zoology art with some furries mixed in

Kelly Ballantyne not sure how much she makes in terms of clothing because her shop is on vacation at the moment, but this artist makes lots of bird illustrations

Moodymoon.co birds, fungi, plants, and other outdoor inspired art!

Mustardbeetle BUGS N BIRDS

Sipseywilder nature apparel of all kinds, bugs, cryptids, birds, plants, etc

Alex Tomlinson cute bird art, lots of art to do with birds and the postal service

Freehand Goods Florian wildlife

Avairia Art cute sea critters

Glitter and Toadstools all sorts of critters

Mothsprout lots of different kinds of critters, some furry stuff mixed in

Pikaloe cute cartoon nature critters, public shop is through rb but if you are a patron you get access to a secret shop

Chentomology bug art

Acorvi art mostly sea critters, cartoony style

Saxony Charlot Hawaiian wildlife I don’t see any apparel yet (though there are some buttons) but I figured I’d share anyway because a portion of profits goes to conservation in Hawaii

Lochnessie the “Birbie” dove design creator, they make lots of cartoony bird art. There aren’t any clothes listed at the moment but they do produce shirts occasionally

One day I would like to make clothing that fits this genre, but I am a full time student and I have a job (among other commitments) so that’s probably not gonna happen soon aha. Also I’m not sure how much I really want to deal with being “marketable.” But I may or may not make my own nature apparel one day :)

the whole point of a zine is that it's cheap to produce, amateur and homemade. if you're being asked to apply to participate in a print project, it is not a zine. if the final product is being printed and bound professionally, it is not a zine. if you are being asked to enter into any kind of licensing agreement more complex than "my work can be reproduced as part of this publication" it is not a zine. nine times put of ten if the final product costs more than $5 you have left zine country. im so serious about this.

this isn't snobby gatekeeping or imaginary semantic problems or whatever, this is an issue that has come up irl at cons and zine fairs local to me and which keeps coming up online. people who show up to trade fairs selling professionally printed $15 anthologies as 'zines' have a direct impact on the people trying to sell their $3 chapbooks at the next table over. submission based kickstarter projects that bill themselves as 'zines' exploit the connotations of amateur, punk production values to induce creators to work for less and eschew formal guarantees and protections they are entitled to.

my favorite zines have all been $1 or free and printed on highlighter paper. i used to pick em up from a book store in chelsea that sold predominantly self published work, and had sections for zines. Some were about how to eat cheap in the city when most of your paycheck went to rent, others were talking about the best drag performances in town, and plenty of DIY stuff. all of them had the same unique quality: nobody but the author and their collaborators could've made this, and they wanted to make it easily accessible to the community

i kinda hate that the word that was used for extremely personal and cheap works is applied to essentially art books of your favorite anime OTP

hi! sorry, real quick:

congrats you're in a zine! if you like you can photocopy it and sell it to art students, fellow haters, or anyone with a sense of humour. I'll buy one.

ive been saying this since 2015! all my illustrator friends kept submitting to them (and gettin in which i was proud of) but they... werent zines. they were like massive books with grandiose color schemes and gilded bossing. i couldnt afford them even. zines are oft free or traded and they arent about how pretty a picture you can make.

the first zine idea i found was in a book i checked out from the library (id never remember what it was. it was about cartooning i think and had a section about chibi style lol) that had a little section on taking one sheet of paper, marking it into eighths, cutting a line in the center of the page and folding it over for a quick eight pages. like this

this makes printing soooo easy too. id love to see these floating around places

So I scrolled past this post and was thinking the same thought I always do when I see people talking about zines, which is basically ‘zines are so cool, I’ve never made one because I don’t think I have anything interesting to say in one, but I should make a zine someday if I ever have creative energy again’ and then it gets added to my ever growing mental list of things I want to do but don’t end up doing (I have spent the last several years struggling so hard with my depression that I can’t seam to create anything at all)

And then I thought, hey I have a piece of paper by my desk I should at least follow that diagram and fold it, that way I’m halfway there even if it’s blank and sits on my desk for months, and then 5 minutes later I had this:

Now I’m just holding this little thing I’ve made in my hands and I love it so much

So thank you to this post for inspiring me to make something today! Even if it’s just a simple silly little thing I’m going to treasure it

This may be shocking to hear but I'm actually not particularly interested in dinosaurs.

I mean, I don't dislike them, they're fine. I've had a great time at dinosaur museums. But I only like them a normal amount.

This blog started completely by accident because in 2015 I was very frustrated with adobe illustrator (had to use it for a class in college) and I drew a horribly bad dinosaur and sent it to my friend who thought it was hilarious, and then I kept doing that and now everyone associates me with dinosaurs even though I only like them a normal amount.

Yeah, that happens. One time when I was in high school or undergrad or something my grandmother was pestering us about writing Christmas lists--she always did that, and then got us things that were similar, but not identical, to what we'd asked for--and I was annoyed about it, so I put that I wanted $100, a bunch of candy, and a giraffe.

I'm not sure why I said giraffe, but here we are.

#at some point in adulthood #you will be assigned an animal motif #this makes gift-buying easy #you can embrace it or fight it #but it will be happening #other variants include a sports team or media franchise instead of an animal (via @alex51324)

2. when i moved into my first apartment by myself at 25, I got a couple of owl-themed kitchen things like an oven mitt and dish towels, not because i'm hugely into owls but because they were cute and I liked them better than the other options at walmart.

anyway this is my house now

My goodness.

Judging from the notes this is a much more common phenomenon than I'd thought.

Foxes and crows. You'd think I'd have a million spider things because that's my name, but no. Foxes and crows.

My wife has honeybees and octopi. My other wife has otters and dogs, but specifically corgis. Why? I don't know. We've never owned a corgi.