YOU NIQQAS WANNA LEARN ELVISH?! HERE YA GO!

is this legit?

This is legit. My husband, sitting across the room, looks over and says, “IS THAT SOMEONE SHOWING HOW TO CONVERT ENGLISH TO TENGWAR?  BECAUSE THAT’S THE WAY!”

Believe this man.  He owns atlases of Middle Earth, the complete history of Midle Earth (leatherbound), and has read the books at least 150 times.  Also: speaks elvish.

Yes.

saw a post abt HBO removing shows that suggests ppl just “burn dvds” but everyone doesnt know how to do that so here is one way to do that

- get blank dvds (Both +R or -R work, I think +R is slightly cheaper, the difference is rewritability), these are not very expensive for the amount you can get in bulk (if you are in the US 100 of them is about 30$ at walmart)

- an external DVD drive that plugs in via usb is also around 20-40$ (it tends to be closer to 20)

- download DVDFlick (free)

- if you don’t already have the mp4/mpeg of whatever media you want to burn, you can download movies/shows off of sites like gomovies.sx and soap2day

gomovies.sx will have a download button that looks like this

below the video you can choose one of these

if you click streamlare for example and then the download button it will take you here where the mp4 is

(if you’re on an iphone/ipad, clicking download will save it to your files app)

- if you cant find the download button on soap2day you can also install a video downloader extension which will find the movie for you

- at this point you can drag and drop it into a google drive or keep it on your computer but if you still want it on dvd ->

- open dvd flick, drag and drop the video

- click “project settings”

- give it whatever title you want, you can change encoder to “normal” (default is below normal if you are doing other things on the computer). you dont need to change target size or thread count (unless you want to)

- insert a blank dvd into your drive, make sure you click “burn project to disc”

- click accept then click “create dvd” next to menu and project settings. it will create a destination folder and this dialogue box will pop up when you click “create” on more dvds, just click “yes” and then “okay” on the box that appears after it

it’ll take a couple hours, once its done take a sharpie & write whats on it and stick it in a case . or dont . im not ur mom

So a couple days ago, some folks braved my long-dormant social media accounts to make sure I’d seen this tweet:

And after getting over my initial (rather emotional) response, I wanted to reply properly, and explain just why that hit me so hard.

So back around twenty years ago, the internet cosplay and costuming scene was very different from today. The older generation of sci-fi convention costumers was made up of experienced, dedicated individuals who had been honing their craft for years.  These were people who took masquerade competitions seriously, and earning your journeyman or master costuming badge was an important thing.  They had a lot of knowledge, but – here’s the important bit – a lot of them didn’t share it.  It’s not just that they weren’t internet-savvy enough to share it, or didn’t have the time to write up tutorials – no, literally if you asked how they did something or what material they used, they would refuse to tell you. Some of them came from professional backgrounds where this knowledge literally was a trade secret, others just wanted to decrease the chances of their rivals in competitions, but for whatever reason it was like getting a door slammed in your face.  Now, that’s a generalization – there were definitely some lovely and kind and helpful old-school costumers – but they tended to advise more one-on-one, and the idea of just putting detailed knowledge out there for random strangers to use wasn’t much of a thing.  And then what information did get out there was coming from people with the freedom and budget to do things like invest in all the tools and materials to create authentic leather hauberks, or build a vac-form setup to make stormtrooper armor, etc.  NOT beginner friendly, is what I’m saying.

Then, around 2000 or so, two particular things happened: anime and manga began to be widely accessible in resulting in a boom in anime conventions and cosplay culture, and a new wave of costume-filled franchises (notably the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings movies) hit the theatres.  What those brought into the convention and costuming arena was a new wave of enthusiastic fans who wanted to make costumes, and though a lot of the anime fans were much younger, some of them, and a lot of the movie franchise fans, were in their 20s and 30s, young enough to use the internet to its (then) full potential, old enough to have autonomy and a little money, and above all, overwhelmingly female.  I think that latter is particularly important because that meant they had a lifetime of dealing with gatekeepers under our belts, and we weren’t inclined to deal with yet another one.  They looked at the old dragons carefully hoarding their knowledge, keeping out anyone who might be unworthy, or (even worse) competition, and they said NO.  If secrets were going to be kept, they were going to figure things out for ourselves, and then they were going to share it with everyone.  Those old-school costumers may have done us a favor in the long run, because not knowing those old secrets meant that we had to find new methods, and we were trying – and succeeding with – materials that “serious” costumers would never have considered.   I was one of those costumers, but there were many more – I was more on the movie side of things, so JediElfQueen and PadawansGuide immediately spring to mind, but there were so many others, on YahooGroups and Livejournal and our own hand-coded webpages, analyzing and testing and experimenting and swapping ideas and sharing, sharing, sharing.  

I’m not saying that to make it sound like we were the noble knights of cosplay, riding in heroically with tutorials for all.  I’m saying that a group of people, individually and as a collective, made the conscious decision that sharing was a Good Things that would improve the community as a whole.  That wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to make, either. I know I thought long and hard before I posted that tutorial; the reaction I had gotten when I wore that armor to a con told me that I had hit on something new, something that gave me an edge, and if I didn’t share that info I could probably hang on to that edge for a year, or two, or three.  And I thought about it, and I was briefly tempted, but again, there were all of these others around me sharing what they knew, and I had seen for myself what I could do when I borrowed and adapted some of their ideas, and I felt the power of what could happen when a group of people came together and gave their creativity to the world.

And it changed the face of costuming.  People who had been intimidated by the sci-fi competition circuit suddenly found the confidence to try it themselves, and brought in their own ideas and discoveries.  And then the next wave of younger costumers took those ideas and ran, and built on them, and branched out off of them, and the wave after that had their own innovations, and suddenly here we are, with Youtube videos and Tumblr tutorials and Etsy patterns and step-by-step how-to books, and I am just so, so proud.  

So yeah, seeing appreciation for a 17-year-old technique I figured out on my dining-room table (and bless it, doesn’t that page just scream “I learned how to code on Geocities!”), and having it embraced as a springboard for newer and better things warms this fandom-old’s heart.  This is our legacy, and a legacy the current group of cosplayers is still creating, and it’s a good one.  

(Oh, and for anyone wondering: yes, I’m over 40 now, and yes, I’m still making costumes. And that armor is still in great shape after 17 years in a hot attic!)  

http://entropyhouse.com/penwiper/costumes/helmsdeep.html

by 2026 social media platform policies and omnipresent crypto integration will have become so unbearable we’ll all go back to hosting our own personal websites with handcoded HTML. this is not a prediction this is a desperate plea

on that note i believe everyone online should experience Cameron’s World at least once

this is what they took from you

just adding a few to the collection

reblogging for reference.

adding some more

adds some

what the fuck

also WHY does every american lit or american history or w/ever course contain the entire history and writings of england & greater europe up until the colonies but NO documentation of the oral histories and stories from actual native american tribes and look at how that influenced and was influenced by european traditions to create the “american” story. like i KNOW why but christ

the first ever anthology of native american poetry was published this week and barnes and noble has a 1998 anthology of native american plays and those are literally the only two anthologies of native american literature i could find and i am PHYSICALLY INSISTING that u buy them and support the native activists and authors who pushed for them to published because holy shit y’all

Grandmas FTW ✨

Okay but for people who struggle with their co-ordination (me): GAME-CHANGER

fuck it up granma

Sometimes I’m looking for something online - often “how to” articles - and I want to filter for - like - a website that was clearly built in 2010 at the latest, which may or may not have been updated since then, but contains a vast wealth of information on one topic, painstakingly organized by an unknown legend in the field with decades’ worth of experience. I don’t want a listicle with a nice stolen picture in a slideshow format written by a content aggregator that God forgot. I want hand-drawn diagrams by some genius professor who doesn’t understand SEO at all, but understands making stir-fries or raising stick insects better than anyone else on this earth. I don’t know what search settings to put into Google to get this.

thank you for articulating this cri de coeur for me

ngl these days i’m just happy when it’s not a video

search.marginalia.nu is the search engine you want!

“It is a search engine, designed to help you find what you didn’t even know you were looking for. If you search for “Plato”, you might for example end up at the Canterbury Tales. Go looking for the Canterbury Tales, and you may stumble upon Neil Gaiman’s blog.

If you are looking for fact, this is almost certainly the wrong tool. If you are looking for serendipity, you’re on the right track. When was the last time you just stumbled onto something interesting, by the way?

I don’t expect this will be the next “big” search engine. This is and will remain a niche tool for a niche audience.“

i clicked around for a few minutes searching various things and I now have two fourteenth century pie crust recipes and an apple filling recipe i want to try, so thanks!

it has been twenty minutes and I am deeply in love with this search engine.

INCREDIBLE. I *do* want to know how to test Windows 95 for Y2K Compliance and I am glad that someone is still hosting step by step instructions for that.

traditional chinese handicraft, ink making 制墨 by 彭传明pcm

If you like this check out @wastelesscrafts

This is a lovely example of how you can cover up a hole with embroidery!

One suggestion to make this mend last longer is to fix the hole first, for example by sewing on a small patch on the back or by darning it, and then adding the embroidery on top.

windows 10 is garbage so every time i boot up the computer i have to run command prompt and enter

net.exe stop “Windows Search”

so that the shitty goddamned search/cortana feature that i never fucking use stops running in the background taking up all my fucking disk space

before

after

what the fuck is that seriously what the fuck is making my computer be a fucking piece of shit

@baristaboy try this out dude

@lambylin

y’all didn’t even add a tutorial of how to do this so imma put one right here 1. type in cmd.exe into your windows search and right click on Command Promt search result and select “Run as Administator”. 2. Type/Copypase in  net.exe stop “Windows Search” and make sure Windows Search is in quotations. It should then respond saying “The Windows Search service is stopping” and then tell you it’s stopped. This is only a temp fix though, if you want it switched off permanently then do THIS: 1.  Press the Windows key + R at the same time and type in services.msc. 2.  Scroll until you find Windows Search and double click it to enter its Properties window. 3.  Change the Startup type to Disabled. Apply this change and you can exit out. VOILA, NO MORE TAKEN UP DISK SPACE

Reblog to save a fucking life, FUCK CORTANA.

I JUST DID THIS AND IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 60% of all my pc problems just disappeared in three freaking clicks.

This is a nice video showing an blind/invisible stitch, which is quite useful for repairing tears or finishing something (ex. cushion).

Also, that extra step for putting back the seam is really nice.

we should be able to rotate desktop programs freely

i want to use my computer like t his

let me show you a program called Compiz that Linux users have access to:

are you sure you want this chaos on your computer?

do i want to live in an early 2000s film’s idea of what a hacker’s computer looks like?

that’s like the end goal of every linux user

Visible Mending

Introduction:

Visible mending is a decorative way to fix up an item. Instead of trying to make your mend as invisible as possible, the idea is to make it part of the garment's design.

Visual mending is not a single technique: it's more of a mindset. If you've got an item you love, it deserves to be mended, and if you're going to put that love into stitches, why not show them off?

That being said, there are some specific techniques that are popular with visible menders. Let's take a look!

Sashiko:

Sashiko is a type of traditional Japanese embroidery that is used to both decorate and reinforce fabric. In visible mending, sashiko is often used to cover up holes with patches or to reinforce thinning fabric. This technique uses a variation on the running stitch.

(Image source)

Some resources on sashiko:

(Image source)

(Image source)

Embroidery:

Regular embroidery is also a popular technique to accentuate your mends. Check out my embroidery 101 post to learn how to get started. You can embroider patches, or use embroidery to hide or accentuate any stitches you've made to fix holes. Embroidery's also a great way to cover up stains.

(Image source)

(Image source)

Patches:

There are many ways to add patches to a garment. My tutorial on patches is a good place to start if you want to make custom-shaped patches to sew on top of your fabric. You can also sew your patch on the inside of your garment and have it peek out from beneath the hole you're trying to fix. Fun ideas for this are lace or superheroes.

(Image source)

(Source)

Darning:

Darning is a technique used to repair holes in fabric by using running stitches to weave extra fabric over the hole as to fill it up again. While traditionally darning is done in an invisible way by using the same colour of thread as your fabric, you can also use contrasting colours to accentuate your fix. Check out this written tutorial on darning by TheSpruceCrafts.

(Image source)

(Image source)

Conclusion:

Visible mending is a creative way to fix up your clothes and give them some personality at the same time.

You should be proud of the fact that you took the time and learned the necessary skills needed to mend your clothes! Show off what you did!

A fun side effect of wearing these obvious mends is that people will notice them. They'll remember your fixes the next time they're faced with a hole in their wardrobe, and it will make them more likely to try it for themselves.

These are just a few ways to visibly mend your garments. Want more inspiration? Check out Pinterest or r/Visiblemending on Reddit.

Some better pictures of the leafkerchief. It’s made of a plain green cotton, with facings in a much lighter weight cotton, and after I sewed and turned all the points right side out I topstitched as close to the edge as I could. The inner edge of the facing is hand sewn with a slipstitch, and the veins are painted on.

I got a lot of questions about this, so I will do a blog post about it, and will include a pattern diagram!

Alrighty, the blog post is up and I drew my pattern out on an inch grid so you can scale it up and make your own!

Eating while on shift is not permitted, staff are told. “If the system detects no keyboard stroke and mouse click, it will show you as idle for that particular duration, and it will be reported to your supervisor. So please avoid hampering your productivity.”

A training video about the webcam system, seen by the Guardian, says it “monitors and tracks real-time employee behaviour and detects any violations to pre-set business rules, and sends real-time alerts to managers to take corrective actions immediately”.

Capitalism is so exhausting

Fuck this

This is insane.

Capitalism is so innovative /s

Hi!  Want to completely fuck the keyboard-tracking system in the ass?  Want to do it in a way that they literally cannot do anything about without disabling primary Windows functions?

Step 1: Open Notepad.

Step 2: Copy the following text, line for line, omitting only the --- that caps either end of it. --- Dim objResult Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Do While True   objResult = objShell.sendkeys("{NUMLOCK}{NUMLOCK}")   Wscript.Sleep (6000) Loop --- Step 3: Save this as whatever.vbs, put it somewhere you can access easily, and double click it when you start your computer.

What does this do?

This runs a very basic script, and every six seconds, your computer will double-tap the NumLock key (i.e., turn it on, and then off) in a single instant.  This counts as a key-press, occurs with a key that shouldn’t affect most things that you’re doing, occurs with no gap between them even if it could affect things you’re doing, and should prevent this kind of BS from engaging.  As an aside, this will also prevent your computer from automatically locking itself, so take that into account if you need to manually lock your computer when going to lunch or whatever.

Damn, Tumblr back at it. Now we got coders coming in to save the day.

Tumblr’s collective hate for capitalism is astounding every time but damn if I don’t love it

For all my call center readers.