Pics that get me going

My professor was describing how everyone from her generation had the same nightmare of a nuke going off. In they dream they all saw the same mushroom cloud and everything. She said that she didn’t think my generation had a dream like that; one that everyone shared and had

For a while none of us could disagree with her. Until this popped up. I raised my hand and mentioned that everyone I knew had an active shooter dream at one point or another. And Every. Single. Person. Nodded. All of us had that dream. All of us.

They shoved herbs in their breathing hose because they knew the air was bad and hoped it would help, and *they were right* in theory. The plague itself was not an airborn virus, but they couldn’t know that and it wasn’t the only thing killing people at the time anyway, and they covered *all* their bases. If they’d had the technological knowhow to make air tanks, or even better air filters, they would’ve. They just made the best air filters they could.

What we think they wore isn’t exactly what they wore, and what they actually wore would later be repurposed into scuba suits (and thus spacesuits too) and *actual hazmat suits*, because the theory was sound, the materials were just lacking, and honestly what they did with the materials they had was hardcore.

they wore full face protection which avoids the most obvious mucosal transmission routes

INCLUDING GLASS IN THE EYEHOLES. They invented safety goggles before most of the world had nailed down corrective eye glasses yet

they wore additional head protection to cover seams in their mask/hoods

they oiled and waxed all their clothes to make it fluid-resistant

they wore separate but tight fitting equally if not more fluid-resistant gloves and/or armcuffs so they could keep hand contamination to a minimum even when dressing/undressing AND they only wore the suit in areas they thought was contaminated and took it off before entering uncontaminated areas

they may have used herbed vinegar to clean, and if the stories are true this was clever because 1) it’s available and portable 2) pretty effective as far as medieval disinfectants go versus the damage it does the the user (as opposed to what they had for bleach at the time, and the actual percentage level in alcohols at the time which was mostly insufficient for task as well as being needed for more important things); vinegar is *still* a decent disinfectant even now

It honestly took doctors well into the twentieth century to get that level of obsessive attention to hygiene and cross-contamination back. A whole lot of babies and mothers wouldn’t’ve died, for instance, if a plague doctor instead of an obstetrician supported the birth because A PLAGUE DOCTOR WOULD KNOW TO WASH THEIR GODDAMNED HANDS.

Actual plague doctor’s outfits:

Watch: A documentary is explaining the many ways movies, TV shows and ads makes fat people feel cursed and invisible

When you only see yourself depicted on the screen as a sidekick, a villain, a predator, or a joke, how does that affect the way you view yourself in real life?

Gifs: Fattitude

“What do you mean the fatties live longer? This CANNOT BE RIGHT DO THE STUDIES 15 MORE TIMES!”

And when they can’t figure it out, they simply say “it’s not worth reading” to keep anything POSITIVE about fat bodies from getting out into the public eye.

Because then folks might not but into the billion dollar industry for diet fads and weight loss scams that all of these obesity doctors line their pockets with.

“No one has been able to make the paradox go away”

They wanna get rid of that shit SO BAD. Because if fat people aren’t as OMG OBESITY CRISIS as folks love to scream, that means their fad diet scams and weight loss surgeries can’t make them millions anymore!

*points and laughs*

Wool was a huge industry in Europe in the middle ages. It was hugely in demand, particularly broadcloth, and was a valuable trade good. A great deal of wool was owned by monasteries and landed gentry who owned the land. 

And, well, the only way to spin wool into yarn to make broadcloth was by hand. 

This was viewed as a feminine occupation, and below the dignity of the monks and male gentry that largely ran the trade. 

So what did they do?

They hired women to spin it. And, turns out, this was a stable job that paid very well. Well enough that it was one of the few viable economic options considered ‘respectable’ outside of marriage for a woman. A spinster could earn quite a tidy salary for her art, and maintain full control over her own money, no husband required. 

So, naturally, women who had little interest in marriage or men? Grabbed this opportunity with both hands and ran with it. Of course, most people didn’t get this, because All Women Want Is Husbands, Right?

So when people say ‘spinster’ as in ‘spinster aunt’, they are TRYING to conjure up an image of a little old lady who is lonely and bitter. 

I would be very interested to see your sources. 

But first, mine

http://www.bahs.org.uk/AGHR/ARTICLES/35n1a1.pdf

http://knightsofthepaintable.com/blog/2011/05/30/medieval-life-106-spinsters-and-spinners/

http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270606.001.0001/acprof-9780199270606  (You’d have to read the book itself (I own a copy) but here’s a link to it.)

“Women in medieval English society”, Mavis E. Mate (https://books.google.com/books?id=YUVXsG5CaywC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=medieval+spinster+independent&source=bl&ots=Vmxe4vjXJ4&sig=Ej-Z3q9KwBnWi0VMeBb4l5NTqSQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3_PGXutjaAhVS3WMKHb2uA5M4ChDoAQhBMAg#v=onepage&q=medieval%20spinster%20independent&f=false

http://www.medievalchronicles.com/medieval-people/medieval-tradesmen-and-merchants/

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/wages-of-women-in-england-12601850/80FBE8313B63D174E2F71DCEAE6D7EBE/core-reader

https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/nufesohwp/_5f145.htm

https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/L08MedTextiles.pdf

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25012124?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

When he mentions her in the latest special, he mentions the conversation quoted above before he dives in. HE IS AWARE HOW LOW THE BAR IS. And what are his stories? There’s no nagging wife. There’s no stories of her not getting how manly he is. The jokes are about what a fucking dork he is and how her responses are in line with WHAT A FUCKING DORK HE IS. He ADORES her because she doesn’t give a fuck, and he is aware he gives entirely too many fucks. 

And when he finally DOES tell a story about her messing something up, it’s a hilarious misunderstanding about the Last Supper that John finds fucking hilarious because he was raised Catholic, so the Last Supper is a BIG DEAL, and she’s Jewish, so it wasn’t on her radar. The story is hilarious because it’s about a very cute and funny misunderstanding based on different backgrounds. It’s not about “finally” one-upping that bitch he married. It’s about being DELIGHTED to find out that bitch he likes so much has a fucking hilarious take on the Last Supper. 

Funny thing happened in August, friends.

We put the Nude binders on sale.

And our income tanked.

Nobody seemed to see the sale posts. Facebook barred me from uploading a short video thanking customers. Twitter was suddenly full of glitches and empty of retweets.

It took several days to figure it out: the word “nude” is completely verboten. A URL with “nude” in it is dead in the water. I can’t prove it, but I’m fairly sure we were showing up lower in Google search results. I’m sure having an ~obscenity flag~ put next to our [LGBT Business tags] did not help, either.

So that’s why they’re all labeled “skin-tone”, now.

Two days after we made that change, the numbers bounced back up.

FOSTA/SESTA has hurt many, many people way more than us. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be a sex worker on the internet right now. But I thought you all might want to know how the wider culture of greater internet censorship is hurting us, too; we’re delaying a new hire, working late hours, and making hard choices on the personal budget side besides.

All this because the Google-Twitter-Facebook triumvarate has decided to err on the side of “everything is obscenity, except, perhaps, the actual porn bots.” And, of course, because these three companies own the internet now.

Viennese Jewish actress Hedy Lamarr marries ethnically Jewish Austrofascist arms dealer (and purported party-thrower for Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and then-biffles with Hermann Göring), Friedrich Mandl, who forces her to convert to Catholicism and have a Catholic wedding

Turns out he’s a controlling fuck (who was surprised) who hated that she simulated a climax on screen and kept her from her acting career so she fled and made a career in Hollywood, but as wartime approached she felt guilty for having a luxurious career as the state of the world became what it was, and wanted to do something about it

She comes into contact with American-born avant-garde composer, pianist and female endocrinology enthusiast George Antheil, of German heritage, because she wants suggestions for bigger tits, but they end up talking about torpedoes instead

The two of them invent a weaponized player piano, using a mechanism from one of Antheil’s avant-garde compositions and the knowledge Lamarr gained from her shitty marriage to a fascist arms dealer, which used frequency-hopping spread-spectrum technology (which gave way to WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth) to encrypt torpedo torpedo attack signals by use of a piano roll, where all 88 keys matched a different frequency making it too difficult to jumble and send torpedoes off course

I reiterate, a conversation about wanting bigger tits led to the conceptualization of a torpedo encrypter controlled by a piano meant to defeat the Nazis

It got patented in 1942 but the US Navy was too hesitant to use technology from outside the military so it didn’t get used

Hedy instead sold kisses and a lunch even went for $4.5 million, for war bonds, and she dubbed herself “just a plain gold-digger for Uncle Sam”

The Cuban Missile Crisis happened, after which the patent had already expired, and the US Navy used her technology

She only ever got any recognition in 1997 for this, three years before her death. Her ashes are scattered in the Vienna Woods.

I know there are a ton of “all hail our mother of wifi Hedy Lamarr” posts out there but I don’t know if any of them quite capture the beautiful absurdity of how this genius ended up doing what she did, so

All Hail our Mother of Wifi Hedy Lamarr

and the scene that pissed off her fascist husband, may we all make fascists as uncomfortable as possible

My younger sister enters high school and one time my mom asked my sister if she had her homework done. And I thought my mom was talking to me and I blurted out "HOLY SHIT I FORGOT." I was shaking for a good 20 minutes from the adrenaline. I hadn't had homework in three years.

Several years out of high school I get anxious going to the bathroom at my job thinking my manager or supervisor is going to stop me and give me shit for slacking off or not asking permission. I hold it for hours on end. I drink less water.

Four years after graduation I show up to work with a 104 degree fever. I'm pulling a pallet and pass out from exasution. It doesn't last long and I'm still okay.

To this day I hear people giggling and assume they're laughing at me. I assume everyone is going to treat me like a highschooler would. Or worse a teacher. When I'm pulled into an office I assume I'm getting into trouble. I'm terrified of people asssuming I'm stupid or lazy or a flake.