If you are interested in vintage sewing/craftibg/knitting, you can check out the V&A museum for free vintage tutorials and patterns :)

please learn how to code

like, if you're bored today, and not doing anything,

learn a little bit of coding please

hi hi hello PLEASE DON'T JUST REBLOG THIS FOR LATER

I know how much you love reblogging posts and then never looking at them ever again. I get it, I really do. but PLEASE

just open one of these links and explore a bit if you're interested

Scratch - great coding program for learning the basics, but so good you can make a video game with it

Codecademy - learn any coding language with lessons

Neocities - literally make a website

it's all free

I'm sending wild animals to your doorstep.

Adding to this as someone who loved coding so much I got a job doing it:

Scratch is super user friendly and great for any age. I’ve seen elementary schoolers using it to learn how to code, though you can definitely use it as an adult too. It’s definitely the least intimidating of the bunch

I owe my eternal soul to Codecademy lol. It’s a lot more in-depth (though still not into any of the advanced stuff). It has you do a bunch of very small exercises (sometimes just retyping a line) to work you up to being able to do it on your own. It’s also great at breaking down what each line does and why each part of it is important. I heavily recommend this one!

Neocities I haven’t used yet, but fish is underselling how awesome it is. I found out about it last week and got so excited. Usually “make your own website” things bring to mind very corporate-esque uses. Neocities is literally just modern Geocities. It highly encourages people to embrace the charm and chaos of internet 1.0, and I felt so happy going through some of the other users’ sites. I’d recommend at least visiting the link to see what other people have done with it, even if you don’t want to make a website.

Other tools I’d recommend:

Godot is great for learning how to code and make video games. From what I’ve seen, it’s a more advanced and powerful Scratch. If you need something a little easier, you can use GameMaker. If you want to sink your nails into an advanced game engine but don’t really know where to start, I highly recommend the Unity tutorials they have on their website. The first time I ever coded something was following the Roll a Ball tutorial I linked, so it has a special place in my heart.

Leetcode is great if you want to brush up on your skills or find some fun challenges. A lot of people also use it to practice for coding interviews.

CSSBattle looks super cute. It’s a multiplayer game that teaches CSS. CSS is a big one in fandom spaces because that’s the language used for work and site skins on AO3. You can do some amazing stuff with it :)

I’ve also seen The Odin Project mentioned a lot. It’s definitely a much more in-depth look into coding languages, but it’s free and open source.

Or honestly you could just go ham and find a tutorial on YouTube to follow. There’s so much cool stuff you can do with coding and it’s a great skill to have for both professional and personal uses. It can be intimidating, but you won’t know how you feel about it until you give it a try :)

Side note: if you’re struggling and not enjoying learning a specific language, try something else. I personally have a blood feud with C but am in love with C#. They all have different practical applications, but they also feel very different to work with, so don’t give up if one language is just not working for you ❤️

today in "google AI is fucking useless because it hallucinates things that never happened", i bought a couple CVS thermometers that have both been acting up, tried to search if there had been a problem with the whole product line:

there is no record of this product recall. it did not happen. the date "feb 8 2024" is the date someone listed a thermometer for sale on ebay.

Google's trying to save you the time spent clicking on a site full of AI-generated SEO garbage by presenting the AI-generated garbage right up front! Such efficiency.

#so google probably uses chatgpt right? #because for some time now chatgpt has done this #become utterly insane and make up random bullshit #and nobody knows why

I was under the impression that we did know why: AI isn't actually a brain and can't actually think or understand information, so it has no concept of something being true or not, or what markers indicate truth or falsity, or how to synthesize information. It's putting a bunch of words in a jar, shaking the jar, and then dumping it out, and acting like that means the jar knows how to talk.

Like, in this case, OP asked for information about a recall. The AI knows that, throughout the entire internet, the word "recall" usually is surrounded by information like a date or a number, so it gives you a date and a number. It doesn't know what a date is or what it's for or what it means. (It also apparently doesn't know the difference between "recall" as in "removing a dangerous product from the shelves" and "recall" as in "remembering," since it smooshes the two together)

what's that thing again that you can put into ublock that blocks all the ai results from google?

On Github is The Huge AI Blocklist for UblockOrigin. You can import it, the linked ReadMe gives a description on howto.

[ID mostly by @homunculusalphonse : A photo of the Google search results for the phrase "cvs thermometers recall": "On February 8, 2024, CVS Health recalled its rigid tip digital thermometer with memory recall and fever alarm. The thermometers have a memory recall feature that stores the previous temperature. The item number for the recall is 375235991489." Both the links attached to this text are from eBay and Pinterest. This module does say "AI overviews are experimental", in much smaller font. /End ID]

The uBlockOrigin AI blocklist above is super helpful y’all.

Try this as well

https://udm14.com/

This website is full of free sewing patterns that will automatically alter to ur measurements

https://freesewing.org

WHAT.

@roboticchibitan

this is the post that started me off making my own clothes, i never actually used a pattern from this site bc i learned how to make my own too quickly but this is where the jump from wishing to doing happened

now im making money doing sewing commissions so lmfao i guess tumblr did do something for me after 10 fucking years

PSA for Google Docs writers

If you (like me) use Google Doc to write fanfic, you may (like me) have been annoyed by the new "feature" they added in the past few weeks, "Smart Chips," where by default every time you open a new line it auto-inserts a "@" symbol and then prompts to add additional people into the doc for review or whatever other useless thing I immediately closed out of.

There doesn't appear to be a way to turn off this "feature" in GDocs however someone has put out an extension that nixes it:

It does ALSO exist for Firefox!

How To RSS: 2023 Edition

An updated version of the guide I keep rewriting even though no one asked.

What is RSS?

Really Simple Syndication. Websites generate feeds, you plug the feeds into your feed reader of choice, you get updates as they happen instead of manually checking bookmarks. If you are using an actual podcasting app instead of spotify, you're already using RSS, because that's how podcasts work. In the same way that you can follow someone's blog and have everything they post appear on your dash instead of manually checking their blogs, RSS lets you build a dash for the entire rest of the internet. Assuming they have an RSS feed. You'd be surprised how many of them do and will learn to be annoyed at any that don't.

Picking an RSS Reader

For the purposes of this post I'm assuming you'll be using inoreader.com, because it's what I use and it has a free option and I'm lazy. Inoreader also has Android and iOS apps, so if you interact with the internet entirely through your phone you can still do all this. The only limitations of a free Inoreader account is that there are ads, and you're limited to 150 feeds. That's still a lot of feeds imho. There are a ton of alternatives and you can look into them if you want but I'm not worrying about that here.

It is unbelievably easy to change your mind later and switch to a different RSS reader without losing anything. Do not get hung up with decision paralysis trying to pick The Perfect App like it's a commitment. You can port everything you do in Inoreader to any other app or website in minutes. It's fine.

excellent guide! highly encourage people to use RSS feeds and keep that dream alive. i built my own RSS reader and use it every single day. for like, ten years now. scary! i even built my own little iOS app for it.

(it's available just for me, sorry, no invites, i don't wanna deal with managing it. but the web side is open source, even tho i haven't updated the repo in many years with the little tweaks i've made over time.)

繕い　　(；ﾟДﾟ) ﾅﾝﾄｫ Mending a sweater

（Reddit:r/oddlysatisfying u/thegupeeman）

I fully understand everything that is going on here and could probably do it but it would take me like three hours and as such I’m calling Witchcraft.

Let this be your sign to watch older movies right now please

And ISTG if I see one argument that you "don't like movies by problematic white men". Oscar Micheaux has films available as far back as 1920's

Alice Guy has such an extensive filmography starting in 1896 that it is genuinely overwhelming. Including the first film with an all african amercian cast in registered history.

Start caring about history and stop hiding behind fake progressive morals to excuse your ignorance.

This person has done THE most impressive job I have ever seen compiling links to many films and books for free

This is an impressive list of film noirs you can watch for free

TubiTV is my favorite streaming site, it has a spectacular list of older films, and you don't need to even create an account to watch them

Also the amount of great older movies available on youtube always impresses me. Every time I can't find an obscure movie on torrent, it is usually just there on youtube. Mosfilm has been remastering their most classic releases and uploading them there.

Anyway, be curious! Search "films about <thing you like>" on your searching engine of choice. Chances are someone made a movie about it no matter how weird and crazy it might seem!

I know I jest sometimes, but films are legitimately great! There is so much to discover out there, it keeps me always excited for the next great thing I can discover that I had never heard about! Please, shed you chains of hollywood fast food, there is so much beauty just at your reach

ways to tie knots on pendants and keychains

I can’t tie a knot to save my life, so I’ll just timestamp the words

00:00 simplest [knot for] peace pendant (original tying method)

00:18 ring pendant necklace (rotate ring 3 times)

00:29 keychain end knot

00:53 Chinese knot/lucky knot [for] anklet {i think the knot afterwards is also a lucky knot, just for the peace pendant instead of an anklet}

I can’t tie a knot

to save my life, so I’ll just

timestamp the words

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

One more tutorial. I think this is the last one I have for now.

Here's how you stitch a 3D jellyfish. This is a more advanced tutorial. Prior experience with most of the stitches is recommended.

Materials: You'll need several needles, at least one shorter and one really long. I've used sashiko needles in three lengths, 4 cm, 5.5 cm and 8.5 cm. As for yarn, I think you can use whatever you have. Most of it can be done with six-stranded floss, but you'll need some thicker woolen yarn for the fluffy turkey stitch. I used fine d'aubusson (a fine wool embroidery yarn) for the body, six-stranded floss (2-3 strands) for most of the tentacles, a shiny silky embroidery floss for the edge of the body and a couple tentacles, and knitting yarn scraps for the turkey stitch.

Stitches: satin stitch, bullion stitch, padded satin stitch, buttonhole stitch, drizzle stitch and turkey stitch. Please look up stitch instructions on youtube, and do a bit of practice beforehand. This project is probably not a good practice run for these stitches.

Time: depends on the size of your jellyfish. I made quite a large one and it took me about 5 hours to complete.

1. Make a sketch of your jellyfish. At least of the body. Fill this body from edge to edge with bullion stitch, make them a bit longer than the body is wide so that they are somewhat loose. You should be able to get a finger underneath the bullion, depending on the size of your jellyfish.

2. Then it's time to satin stitch the body. For this part it's important that the needle goes through the fabric as close to where it came up as possible. The goal is not just to make a 3D body, but to make it a hollow 3D body. Don't just stitch over the bullion, stitch around it. It's also important to not pull too tight. Bullion stitch of this lenght is rather malleable, so it's a bit tricky to keep the satin stitch even. Hold a finger in the hollow underneath the bullion as you pull the thread tight. This will stop it from getting to tight, as well as make sure you keep the hollow. As the stitching gets thicker the hollow will get smaller, but that's ok.

3. When the top part of the body is fully stitched it's time to do normal flat satin stitch for the bottom part, the inside of the body of you will. Leave an opening in the middle though, you'll need some space for the drizzle and turkey stitch later.

5. Now it's time for the tentacles. Start with the drizzle stitch, because the turkey stitch will just get in the way if you start with that... but do remember to leave space for the turkey stitch underneath the drizzle stitch. This is where you need the loooong needle. Pack as much drizzle stitch on that needle as you can. You'll notice that the drizzle stitch wants to rotate around your needle as it gets longer, do let it, that will just help you fit more stitch on there, as well as give the finished stitch a nice curl.

6. When you think you have enough drizzle you can move on to the turkey stitch. You will not need to do a lot of it. You'll probably overestimate how much you need, but that's ok, you can always give the fluff a bit of a haircut later. Do a few looong loops of turkey stitch, a little bit longer than your drizzle stitch. Cut the loops to slightly different lengths, otherwise you'll get a very blocky bit of fluff... tapered is better. Untwist the yarn and separate the strands, draw a needle through the strands to fluff them up.

7. As a finishing touch you can add some long and thin strands around the edge of the body.

People seemed to appreciate the tutorial I posted so here is another one. Here is how you can stitch a 3D sea urchin (without the spines). This one is a bit more advanced and needs some descrioption to accompany the images.

Technique: The technique is called woven picot. If needed you should be able to find better stitch instructions on youtube.

Threads and yarns: I've preferred using a twisted thread for the woven picot. In the tutorial I'm using sashiko thread, and that worked ok but wasn't ideal. I would recommend cotton perle or mercerised cotton crochet yarn for this technique. The top example is mercer cotton. The tighter the thread is twisted the better I'd say. I do NOT recommend using six-stranded floss.

Variegated thread is fun for this project. If the randomeness of it bothers you then you can cut out lighter and darker sections of your variegated thread and then do every other wedge of woven picot darker and every other lighter, as I've done in the top example.

The yarn in the middle is some really chunky wool knitting yarn, which is a bit of a struggle to work with. You could also just ball some yarn up, pack in there and fasten it with some stitches with a thinner thread. It's not going to be visible anyway, so you can improvize.

Needle: A blunt needle is better for this technique too, but I only had sharp ones at the time I made this tutorial. Don't be like me.

Process: I'd say the pictures are pretty self explanatory, but here is a brief rundown. Draw a circle on the fabric, in the size you want your sea urchin to be. Split this circle in to five equal sections. A sea urchin typically has a patter that is made up of five broader wedges interspersed by five narrower wedges, so that's what we want to achieve. So when you have your five sections, try to sketch out five broad and five narroow sections using the lines you've already drawn as a guideline.

Make the wedges as pictured above. Each wedge needs to be of equal length and a bit longer than the radius of the circle.

Fill the middle with som padding, as described above. I've made five puffs of padding, one for each broader wedge. Which leaves little valleys for the narrow wedges to rest in, and creates a shape typical of some sea urchins. The woven wedges are then simply joined together as neatly as possible with a thin thread of similar color (I just split the sashiko thread down to half the thickness and used that).

Lastly I finished the edge of the hole in the middle with some button hole type stitches maybe? I'm shit at stitch names... Beading is optional, I just thought it looked neat.

THERE IS. a website. that takes 3D models with seams and pulls it apart to make a plushie pattern and informs you where things need to be edited or darts added for the best effect. and then it lets you scale it and print off your pattern. and I want to lose my MIND because I've lost steam halfway through so many plushie patterns in the mind numbing in betweens of unwrapping, copying all of the meshes down as pieces, transferring those, testing them, then finding obvious tweaks... like... this would eradicate 99% of my trial and error workflow for 3D models to plushies & MAYBE ILL FINALLY FINISH SCREAMTAIL...

so this website let's you:

this is. beyond. this is BEYOND. and as far as I can see it's free???

In archery, as in life, it's rarely as clear cut as 'this is the best', but we all have our preferences!

(Btw, if you want more details on the specific quivers that I use, I'll be chatting about them on Patreon this week)

Okay I’m currently furious that migraines are often so blindly easy to treat and I had to find this out myself at the age of 26 when I’ve been to a neurologist since I was 11 lol so I’m about to teach you two neat and fast little tricks to deal with pain!

The first is the sternocleidomastoid muscle, or the SCM muscle.

This big red section is responsible for pain around the eye, cheekbone, and jaw, as well as some temple pain. Literally all you have to do is angle your head down a little, angle it away from the side that hurts, and then you can gently pinch and rub that muscle. I find it best to start at the bottom and travel upwards. The relief is so immediate! You can increase pressure as you feel comfortable doing so.

Here is a short and easy video showing this in action

The second is a fast and easy stretch that soothes your vagus nerve, which is the nerve responsible for calming you down. The vagus nerve, for those unfamiliar, is stimulated by deep breathing such as yawning, sighing, singing, or taking a deep breath to calm your anger in a tense situation.

You can stretch this out by sitting up as straight as possible (this does not have to be perfect to work) and interlacing your fingers. Put your hands on the back of your head with your thumbs going down the sides of your neck and, while keeping your face forward, look all the way to one side with just your eyes. Hold that until you feel the urge to breathe deeply or yawn, or until you can tell there’s a change. Then do the same thing on the other side. When you put your arms down, you should clearly be able to turn your head farther in both directions. If the first session doesn’t get rid of your migraine, rest and repeat as many times as necessary. I even get a little fancy with it and roll my eyes up and down along the outer edge sometimes to stretch as much as I can.

If you need a visual here’s a good video on it. I know some of the language they use seems questionable but this is real and simple science and should not be discarded because it’s been adopted by the trendy wellness crowd!

I seriously cannot believe I didn’t hear a word of this from any doctor in my life. Additionally, if you get frequent recurring migraines, you may want to see a dietician. Migraines can be caused by foods containing histamines, lectin, etc. and can also be caused by high blood pressure in specific situations such as exercise, stress, and even sex.

If any of this information helps you I’d love to hear it btw! It’s so so fast and easy to do. Good luck!

*currently suffering from a horrible migraine. Tries this*

Are you fucking shitting me it works!?

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

Want to learn something new in 2023??

Cooking with flavor bootcamp (used what I learned in this a LOT this year)

Beekeeping 101

Learn Interior Design from the British Academy of Interior Design (free to audit course - just choose the free option when you register)

Video on learning to read music that actually helped me??

How to use and sew with a sewing machine

How to ride a bike (listen. some of us never learned, and that's okay.)

How to cornrow-braid hair (I have it on good authority that this video is a godsend for doing your baby niece's black hair)

Making mead at home (I actually did this last summer and it was SO good)

How to garden

Basics of snowboarding (proceed with caution)

How to draw for people who (think they) suck at art (I know this website looks like a 2003 monstrosity, but the tutorials are excellent)

Pixel art for beginners so you can make the next great indie game

Go (back) to school

Introduction to Astronomy (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Principals of Economics (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Introduction to philosophy (free college course)

Computer science basics (full-semester Harvard course free online)

Learn a language

Japanese for Dummies (link fix from 2022)

Ukrainian

Portuguese (Brazil)

American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Simplified)

Quenya (LOTR fantasy elf language)

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.  

[Image Description: The first image is a screenshot of a thread with all usernames blocked out.

The second image is a GIF showing a person putting their palms on their ears, and holding their head with their hands, fingers facing toward the back. They gently thump the soft spot in the back of their head with one finger on each hand. It’s the part of the head where the neck starts. End Image Description.]

“And remember: you’re worth the time it takes to learn a new skill!”

oh my goodness I love her she’s so wholesome

The fact that she's doing all this with the most adorable, flawless manicure ever is making me SO freaking jealous.