beautiful bedrooms in ikea's 1996 catalogue
Been seeing people say that we have to make Twitter completely unprofitable now that Elon owns it, and that's completely true. We need to do that. But we're not going to do that by just being so fucking annoying that no one else wants to be on Twitter. We have to be calculated, coordinated, and so fucking annoying that no brands want to be on Twitter. This must mark the resurgence of The Brand Wars. So if you're on Twitter, you must be completely insufferable to brands. Every brand account you find, comment "SILENCE BRAND" on their posts, block them, tell everyone you know to block them, and move on to the next one. This includes the brands you like. I don't care if Wendy's Twitter is funny; block them. If all the funny popular brand Twitter accounts lose even a quarter of their following in a decently short period of time, they will freak out, and they will blame Musk. If every time you see a sponsored post you immediately block the account that sponsored it, that's money that Twitter can't make off of you anymore, and that's money that Musk loses. We can do this, but we have to do it together, so let's show the world just how powerful a social media community can be and show them that billionaires have no place in that community.
saw this exact post but about DVDs by not-a-space-alien and felt the need to check something
HAPPY ACE WEEK FUCKERS
I feel like I need to tell everyone how brilliantly the Globe incorporated a deaf Gildenstern into the 2018 Hamlet and then force all of you to watch it
ok, so Gildenstern is played by a deaf actor, Nadia Nadarajah. he* signs all his lines, and either Rosencratz interprets for him, or the person he’s talking to says something that makes it obvious what he just said, depending. how each character reacts to Gildenstern is completely in-character and often hilarious
Claudius and Gertrude are intensely awkward around Gildenstern. they obviously don’t know BSL so they just gesture emphatically but aimlessly when they talk.
Hamlet, who of course is friends with R&G, *does* know BSL. he starts off by signing fluently whenever he’s talking to them but, as his distrust of them grows, he signs less and less until he’s only signing the equivalent of “fuck off” whenever he talks
Polonius just shouts really loud whenever he tries to talk to Gildenstern
it’s all brilliant and adds another layer of humor and pathos and you should all watch it
*casting at the Globe right now is gender neutral so I’m just going to use the character’s pronouns
Every update Google makes to their UI system makes me want to kick the lead designer in the teeth. He deserves it.
A short comic I made about my experiences as a seasonal worker, and the way places change you.
Seriously fuck apple hardware and their hinges that break monitor cables and their butterfly keys and their 24-step battery replacement process that involves *removing your goddamned speakers* to replace the battery.
Fuck. That.
Fuck their specialized Apple screwdrivers
And their bullshit expensive replacement parts.
Two weeks ago I added RAM to my new laptop and it took about four minutes.
I just now replaced the fan on my old laptop while I was on a call with a vendor.
Both of those things used the same phillips-head screwdriver that I got in a pack of three for a dollar fifty at daiso. And I didn't have to *use a hairdryer to soften the adhesive on my speakers* to access either of those parts, let alone a part as basic and as likely to fail as a fucking battery. Hell, I opened up my new laptop and found out that there's a spot for me to put in a second SSD with a similarly small amount of effort.
But while I'm here:
Fuck modern cars. Fuck the engine covers with breakable pins that make it a pain in the ass to do anything more than checking the oil. Fuck the use of tablets as an interface for dealing with the car. Fuck proprietary RFID key fobs and fuck tire monitoring systems that'll make you fail a smog check.
Fuck cheaply made clothing that won't last more than a couple dozen wears but is so thin and flimsy that it also can't handle being mended.
Fuck printers that require a subscription for ink every three months even if you aren't out of ink, because they'll say you're out of ink because they disable the cartridges after a certain time no matter how much or how little you've printed.
Fuck printers generally, they're such cheap and horrible pieces of garbage at the consumer level that it's usually less expensive to buy a new printer than it is to replace cartridges, and it's usually cheap to replace the rollers but the printer is such shit that your odds of snapping off some fiddly piece of plastic garbage are about 50/50 even if you do know what you're doing.
Fuck all of this shit. You should be able to fix what you own, and if you can't or don't want to learn how to, you should at least have the option to try without becoming a professional.
I keep seeing that post about wanting packaged delivered slower by happier, safer, better-paid workers and first of all: Fuck yes. But also: I want clunkier, heavier technology that is easier to fix.
If I needed a laptop that could fit into a manila envelope I would get a fucking tablet, what I need is a laptop that has some actual computing power and that I can swap the hard drive on in less than forty minutes.
The cellphone I had five years ago had a smaller screen and a thicker case, but I could replace the battery with my thumb as the only tool, and with some effort (less than it would require now) I could replace the whole screen. I don't need a seven inch screen and four cameras on the back and a thin, lightweight case, the phone that was the size of my palm and half an inch thick was fine and LOOK I know a lot of the components have become smaller; why did we move to slimmer cases instead of keeping the thicker ones that anyone could crack open to swap in a SIM or replace the battery? You could have BIGGER batteries, with longer lifespans if you still had thicker cases and smaller screens and then maybe this piece of shit phone would fit in any single pocket on my clothing instead of hanging halfway out and trying to make a dive onto the ground every time I stand up.
I don't like the attitude of "stuff in the old days used to just WORK" - in some ways it's true, in some ways it isn't. Cars in the old days certainly did NOT just used to work. But it used to be a fuck of a lot easier to get into an engine and *fix it* without having to get an entire collection of vehicle-specific tools and half a computer science degree. Printers have never, in the existence of printers, "just worked" but they didn't stop printing because of a programmed date on a chip in the fucking cartridge.
A lot of hardware from today is fine. SSDs are pretty great, and there are new manufactured hard drives that I know are going to last thirty years, just like the 40MB drive from 1987 that a customer brought into my shop a few years ago.
There are people out there who are making good stuff.
But it's so fucking frustrating the way that it feels like you have to fight to find something that isn't just the absolute shittiest piece of garbage. The amount of stuff out there that is flimsy, likely to fail, and only-user-serviceable-if-the-user-is-already-technically-proficient is really, really upsetting.
You know what, since I'm thinking about it anyways, let's talk formalwear accessories. Most of these are traditionally menswear but a bit of gender fuckery is good for the soul, and frankly most of these are about making your mass-produced clothing fit and lay properly without having to go to the tailor.
Shirt stays: these go around your thighs to hold your shirt down, so that it stays smooth and tucked in. They're usually elastic, with 1-3 clips, and if you wear skirts frequently this is a GREAT way to make sure your top doesn't ride up. The clips will be visible if you're wearing something tight, so loose pants or skirts are where these do best. There's also an insane version that clips to your socks, but that is for lunatics. If you wanted, you could also use one of these clips to hold up thigh-highs.
These do a great job of smoothing and narrowing the waist area by keeping your shirt from bunching there.
Sleeve garters: usually metal, leather, elastic, or silk. These are usually worn with button-down shirts to adjust where your cuff falls on the wrist or hand. They're properly worn on the upper arm, and you pull the fabric of the sleeve above the garter until you cuff is where you want it. Because this creates a puff of sleeve at the bicep, it also broadens the appearance of the shoulders. It's great if you're working with your hands or if your sleeves are often too long for your preference.
Waistband clip or belt adjustment clip/buttons
Three different ways of tightening the waistband of a pair of pants or a skirt. You're not going to get more than an inch or so tighter without weird bunching, and for most of these you'd want them to be hidden under a shirt or jacket, but they do the job if that's something you're having issues with.
Collar pins: There are so many fun ones out there, both with and without chains. They're not terribly practical, though the slight weight may help keep your collar where you want it. Also consider collar tips, which pin (surprise) to the very tips of your collar points.
Sweater clips/guards: meant to hold your sweater or cardigan mostly closed. Great if your cardigan doesn't button, or if you don't like it to be buttoned all the way.
There's tons of other stuff out there like this--etsy is a great place to find this stuff. A lot of these are old solutions to the very modern problem of mass-maufactured clothes not being as one-size-fits-all as advertised, but they're also a fun way to put a bit of personality into businesswear.