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random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google
I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.
also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo
also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)
i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:
Search Engines
Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy
DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)
WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to ācompute expert-level answers using Wolframās breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.ā A data search engine.
Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.
Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that wonāt record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses ā&ā as a bang search.
Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that usersā identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines.Ā
Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted.Ā
Gibiruās tagline is āUnfiltered private searchā and thatās exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy.Ā
Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.
Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden.Ā
MetaGer offers āPrivacy Protected Search & Findā through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.
Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching.Ā
Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar.Ā
https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results.Ā
https://www.mojeek.com/Ā
https://wiby.me/ - Itās goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites.Ā
https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesnāt have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think itās the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.
https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.
https://yep.com/ is a crawler
https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx
https://www.dogpile.com/Ā
https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)
https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?
https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?
https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.
Other Searchers
www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine
I love lying to my landlord. āWeāre currently looking at a comparable unit in the area at $[a hundred dollars less than our current rent]/month, so if your offer has any flexibility to come down on the rent, that would help us reach a decision about whether or not to renew our lease hereā and the comparable unit exists only in my own beautiful mind
Actually, no! And since several people have replied asked for my script for negotiating lower rent, Iām gonna share that below, as well as the philosophy behind it. Full disclosure that Iām not a leasing office person or a realtor or god forbid, a landlordāIām just someone who has been a renter for 10+ years across different states, and I know for a fact that I have saved myself thousands of dollars by successfully negotiating a lower monthly rent on almost every lease Iāve ever signed. (Also, Iāve only ever rented in the U.S., so this advice may not be as applicable elsewhere.)
Step 0: Know Thy Enemy
The key thing to understand about all residential landlords, whether theyāre corporate conglomerates or Just Some Asshole, is that their assetāthe propertyāis a Cinderella carriage that magically turns back into an expensive ass pumpkin of a liability any time itās sitting empty. The property taxes, insurance, mortgage, HOA fees, and maintenance costs all still come due every month/quarter/year whether they have a tenant to cover it all and then some, or not.Ā
Because of this, at the end of the day, their ultimate goal is to fill every unit at all times with someone who will reliably pay the rent on time and in full. And because everything else is secondary to that goalāand because with the exception of Just Some Asshole landlords, the person responding to your emails and writing up your lease paperwork is several degrees of separation removed from the shareholders who profit off your rent moneyātheyāre almost always willing to negotiate with you. As long as it gets the liability converted into an asset faster or keeps the carriage from turning back into a pumpkin for longer, then in the long run, itās actually in their best interest to give you a better price.Ā
Step 1: Identify Your Leverage
If you understand how supply and demand works, you can figure out how much leverage you have pretty easily.Ā High supply and low demand = you have more leverage, and vice versa. Do they have an āAVAILABLE NOW - MOVE IN TODAYā sandwich board on the sidewalk or a web banner that says āFirst month freeā? Does their website and/or Apartments.com show a bunch of currently open listings? Do you already live there and know at least two families on your floor have moved out in the last several months with no one new moving in to replace them? These are all indications that they have more than one unit currently sitting empty, meaning higher supply and lower demand. No sandwich board and a website that just says ācall for availabilityā? They might just suck at marketing, but more likely, supply is lower and demand is higher.Ā
You have the least leverage if youāre a prospective tenant looking to move in somewhere that has a waitlist. They have no reason to offer you a discount if six other people are already in line to pay full price for apartments that arenāt even vacant yet (but you can still ask!). You also have no leverage to negotiate if youāve already signed a lease and youāre in the middle of the lease period; you legally agreed to pay $X/month for Y months, so youāre stuck with that until the lease is up.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have the most leverage if youāre a current tenant who has always paid your rent on time and youāre being offered a renewal on your existing lease with higher rent than you're currently paying, especially if they already have some units that have been empty for a while. If you move out, not only is your unit going to sit vacant for at least part of a month, theyāre also probably going to have to put in some work to āturnā the unit (repainting, professional cleaning, etc) to get it in move-in condition for the next tenant.
All of this means that if you move out, even if they can fleece you out of your security deposit and find a new tenant the very next month, itās still gonna cost them at least a few thousand dollars to turn that pumpkin back into a carriage again. Theyāre probably willing to come down by $100-$200/month or so on the renewal offer rent if you ask, because they know itāll actually save them money in the long run. Similar situation if youāre a prospective new tenantāif they canāt get you or anyone else to sign a lease and move in this month, thatās $[whatever the monthly rent is] down the drain, and theyāll never get it back. Itās a perishable item about to spoil.Ā
Step 2: Get Their Opening Offer
This is the first number theyāll quote you for the rentāthe sticker price that youāve always just accepted as set in stone. The truth is, theyāve built some buffer into that number. Thereās almost always some room for them to come down, and depending on your leverage, they will if you ask nicely. But for reasons that baffle me, most people donāt!
Step 3: Wait, Research, & Counter
Donāt reply to their initial offer right awayāunless thereās a waitlist (in which case, you have little haggling power anyway), wait a few days. It makes them sweat a bit, and it shows you arenāt desperate. The person who is rushing to reply is not the one who has more leverage in the negotiation, and making them wait reminds them of that. In the meantime, use Apartments.com or Zillow to get an idea of what similar units in the same area are currently going for. Then you come up with your counteroffer.
As a general rule, anything more than about 20-25% below their opening offer (or below market rates) will probably just piss them off or make them take you less seriously. But when weāre talking about your monthly rent over the course of a year or two, even a 10% discount adds up to a lot of money!
When I negotiated our original lease for my current place, I also asked for and got a two year lease term instead of the standard one year. But whatever automated calendar event system they use to remind their leasing office staff when itās time to send out renewal offers didnāt get the memo about that, so they mistakenly sent me a renewal offer the following year, meaning I got to see how much they would have jacked up the rent if they couldāve. For that second year of the lease alone, my negotiating saved us $3,000!Ā
Step 4: BDE (Big Dick Emailing)Ā
Hereās the tricky part. You need to write an emailāalways negotiate over email if you can, itās too easy for a salesperson to bowl you over on the phone and anything they say that isnāt in writing means nothingāwhich simultaneously makes it sound like you would sign a lease with them in a heartbeat and like you are actively flirting with five other apartment complexes right now who all want you so bad it makes them look stupid, because you are just so sexy and fun and your credit score is eight inches flaccid. You need to make them believe you are both highly motivated and ready to sign on the dotted line and willing to just walk away from the table at any second, but if they could just come down a little bit on that number, youād delete those other hoesā numbers forever! Hereās the rough script I use every time:
ā Thank you for [your email/the tour/sending over the offer letter/etc]. I have had a chance to review and consider it. I think [name of apartment complex] would be the perfect fit for me, but I am also exploring and touring other options in the area, including a comparable unit nearby at $[a little below your counteroffer number]/month.
If we could come down to $[your counteroffer number]/month on the rent, I would be prepared to sign the lease today. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks! "
Step 6: You Win Either Way
Sometimes they really do just accept your counteroffer without question and send you over a revised lease to sign. (When this happens, I make a note for next time that my counteroffer was probably too high and I shouldāve asked for more!) More often, they get approval from The Powers That Be and come back with a number thatās higher than your counteroffer but lower than their initial offer. Assuming I can afford it, I always accept this offer; youāve achieved your goal of saving yourself money from sticker price, and theyāre likely to lose patience if they have to keep going around and around with you. And sometimes (though only very rarely), they may come back and say the price is firmāin which case, guess what? You still didnāt lose anything by asking!
THIS!!! Exactly this. I didnāt mention it above because I just couldnāt fit it neatly anywhere, but once while negotiating a lease renewal, I got as far as receiving their counteroffer, which was basically āprice firm :(ā, but then life happened, so I forgot to respond and accept. The email sat in my inbox for a week. And then, completely unprompted, they magically replied again saying, āactually, nvm, howās $[number that is lower than our opening offer] sound?ā
To them, it looked like I was staring them down cold as ice like
I was literally just busy with other stuff! and they were sweating!!! BULLETS!!!
Most other wasps that have green on them are not a true green, and instead only appear green due to what is called "structural color"ā the micro-make up and surface of the scales reflect light to make it appear that color as opposed to true pigment, which is a chemical mix that results in the color. This is why so many green wasps (and birds for that matter) have a metallic sheen to them, as the angle the light hits at will also effect the perceived color.
There are only a handful of wasp species with true green pigment, the majority of which can only be found in Madagascar.
it's that time of the year, where I always stand by wild flowers by the road to watch all the beautiful pollinators. One of the most known of them is honey bee. I made this doily to honour this specific animal
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pet peeve is when you look up fashion references from a specific era and you keep getting modern day '[era]-inspired' fashion like NO i want authenticity damn it. i can see your 2020 photo quality and your 2020 hair and your 2020 makeup. youre not fooling me.
hello i'm a historical fashion researcher and i have a lot of experience looking up things! this is a very widely experienced irritation and you're definitely not alone in this, but i am here to share everything i know!
so, ways to get around this:
turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us
don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace
a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)
instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian
including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too
including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue
for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend
when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!
if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache
some online resources and museum collections:
fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples
the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates
costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)
v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece
lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces
nypl digital collection for photographs
national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art
national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific
stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource
wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain
auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!
anyway, i hope this has been a good place to start for anyone interested! there are probably some i've missed because there are so many museums across the world and i don't know about all of them or can't remember them. but these are the ones i've used the most! (my specialisation/jobs i've had to research for have only really been in western fashion, so my resources reflect that)
Wikipedia has a list of fashion museums. Unfortunately, the page itself is only available in German, but the introductory paragraph is very short and after that, it's organised by country, and then it's a simple list. If you click on a museum's article, the website is usually linked in the overview table.
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Hello. I clean houses for a living. Here are some places in Your Dwelling that it's probably been a while since you've thought about cleaning. This is a judgement-free, non-exhaustive list of crap you should maybe get around to soon š
Bathroom:
ā Front and base of the toilet (they get nasty and dusty really quick)
ā Faucet (take a toothbrush and some all-purpose bathroom cleaner and give it a scrub to remove plaque from toothpaste and hard water buildup, then a wipedown. You will literally be shocked by the difference if you haven't cleaned it in a while)
ā Consider removing the toilet seat and cleaning underneath it/getting at the hinges with a grout brush (in case you didn't know: it's fastened to the toilet by two large usually plastic screws under the tabs at the back, with nuts on the underside. Just unscrew the nuts and you can pop the whole seat off)
ā Sink drains: they gather gunk and pink mold around and underneath the rim. You can loosen shit and scrub it away with some all-purpose cleaner and a toothbrush/grout brush (PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND BUY SOME SMALL GROUT BRUSHES)
ā The floor: Mop that damn floor. Get in the corners and wipe down your baseboards too. This is best accomplished on your hands and knees if you have that capability. If not its whatever
Kitchen:
ā Underneath your range hood! Theres grease filters under there that you can soak in degreaser and then scrub clean in the sink. Grease also likes to just hang out in that area, but if you spray it down with Fantastik or Method heavy duty degreaser it'll wipe right off.
ā If you have stainless steel appliances, consider buffing them out once a month with stainless steel cleaner and a dry cloth. Wiping off those fingerprint smudges and fridge water drip stains is soooo satisfying
ā Sink! Wash that sink! If it's stainless steel, use Bar Keeper's Friend powder on a wet surface to buff it out, with a Scrub Daddy or something, and get it looking shiny and new again. This can also be done on ceramic sinks - dirt magnetizes to any minor scratches in white ceramic, and giving it a scrub will erase those dark scratches.l
ā Cabinets. Wipe that shit down brother. Especially the cabinets closest to your range!! If you have heavy grease buildup on your cabinets, try using something scritchy like a Scrub Daddy with some all-purpose cleaning spray to try and get it off. Failing that, do a spot test with some Fantastik etc degreaser spray to make sure you wont irrevocably fuck up your cabinets (theyre technically not meant to be used on porous surfaces like wood but sometimes a little rebellion is necessary) and if it doesnt melt the paint off then spray a cloth with it and give them a wipedown.
ā You need to do a fridge cleanout. I know you do. After you clean out your fridge, take advantage of all that newfound space and wipe down the shelves with my best friend Fantastik and the sponge side of a Scrub Mommy. Im not sponsored or anything the shit is just goated
ā Also on the list of shit you really dont want to do but need to: Clean the oven. Do not use the self-cleaning function, it gets way too hot and has a chance of actually ruining your oven in the long run. Take the racks out and soak them in warm baking soda water in your bathtub for, I dont know, as long as it takes to clean the rest of the oven? Usually 30 min-an hour. Spray the oven down with oven cleaner and LET IT SIT!!!! for as long as the product says it needs to sit. Then take a stainless steel scrubbing pad or some steel wool and go to town on that bitch. Some of the shit will not be coming off unless you are a professional oven cleaner, so just focus on getting out the crust and the really bad burnt bits (the flammable shit)
ā Range: For an electric range, those drip pans are probably in need of a scrub. You can remove the heating elements and take out the drip pans beneath them to soak in the sink, then get at em with a stainless steel scrubber. For a gas range, I'm so sorry. Just take the grates off, spray some degreaser on the surface, and wipe it down. As far as the grates go, God went ahead and abandoned us on that one, but if you must - degreaser soak and a stainless steel scrubber.
Bedrooms:
ā When was the last time you dusted your ceiling fan?
ā When was the last time you got at those baseboards?
ā Bedsheets and bed linens: I know, me too. If it's been more than two weeks, change your sheets - and if you've got a duvet, it's probably time to wash it and the cover you've had on it for way too long. I am calling myself out here basically by name.
ā Bedside tables: It's time for a declutter and a dust. Put things in jewelry boxes and medicine cabinets where they belong, wipe shit down, and have a beautiful clean place to put your phone at night
General:
ā If you want your Zone to immediately look 50% cleaner, vacuum your rugs and carpets and wash your wood(/laminate/LVP/etc) floors
ā I'm telling you man. Baseboards. Especially if you have pets, those things can get SO nasty. A wet wipe of your baseboards will make a world of difference.
ā I highly recommend buying something you can dust up high with. Get at those cobwebs and the caked-up dust on your ceiling fan. Also super useful for a quick baseboard dust - you can just run that shit along without having to bend over
ā These are all things that really only need to be done once every couple months at most. Dont break your back making any of this a part of your regular weekly-to-monthly routine.
Someone asked me what housekeeping skills Iād recommend learning.
Keep in ming that this is not me shaming you, I know you have your reasons, folks. This is just a guy who enjoys clean spaces asking that you start learning now.
Hereās what I suggest as an adult who has lived with other adults who didnāt have housekeeping skills:
First and foremost, learn about all the places in your house that need to be cleaned and understand how often they should be cleaned. the American Cleaning Institute (I guess thatās a thing) has a good article about basic cleaning info. Plus this video on cleaning tips is great!
Learn how to do your dishes. HOT water is the only way to clean your dishes.
Learn how to clean your shower head, especially if you live in a place with hard water. Same goes for your sinks.
Learn how to do your laundry correctly. Even without the whole āseparating whites and colorsā thing, there are things you need to learn about washing your clothes. Learn what the tags mean, too.
Also, you donāt have to use fabric softener and you shouldnāt use it on towels or any fabric meant to absorb. (Learn about laundromats)
And please learn how to clean out your dryer vent, itās a safety hazard!
Get a disinfecting cleaner for your high-touch areas, especially the gross ones like the bathroom. Just because it doesnāt look dirty, doesnāt mean itās clean!
Learn how to sweep, mop, and vacuum effectively.
Youāll also want to make sure to change out your homeās air filters.
TL;DR, here are some cleaning videos.
How to Clean Everything in Your Bathroom
How to Clean Everything in Your Kitchen
Livingroom Cleaning Routine
How to Clean Everything in Your Bedroom
Now these resources are not the end-all-be-all, but I think if you donāt know much about cleaning your space this is a good way to start.
hereās some of the things that are helping me actually clean (as an adult who had messy parents, and has a hard time getting threw my nurodivergency about cleaning specifically) that may be helpful to you:
Favorite Cleaning Book: it helps you work through the emotional side of cleaning (and other care tasks)
Current Favorite Decluttering Method/Concept: it helps you know how much is too much to keep and how to get started when youāre overwhelmed. (having too much stuff makes it incredibly hard to clean/organize.)
Basic Cleaning Skills: this channel is amazing! this man has a special interest in cleaning and cleans peopleās spaces who deal nurodivergence that make it hard to clean. he does this for free (or at a deficit because he pays for supplies and dumpsters and transport and such) and does it all with empathy and kindness working With the people as much as people can handle instead of just coming in to āfixā an issue. these videos are a bit different from his usual ones, (the last oneās most like his usual videos) but i find having the sped up cleaning videos with a voiceover can help fill in for body doubling when im too ashamed to bring people into my messy spaces.
iāve warmed up significantly towards the concept of small talk ever since i learned that its sole purpose is to make friendly noises.
as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. itās just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. weāre small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, āiām not here to hurt you. hereās something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know weāre on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. iām being light-hearted and non-threatening right now.ā
small talk isnāt to get to know a person. itās just a greeting to affirm youāre buddies in the universe.
i am motivated by wanting the other person to know i am friendly, so i have gotten pretty decent at small talk when i used to hate it.
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the handmaids tale, margaret atwood// @firstfullmoon // @stigmatawife // @jb-blunk // forever winter, taylor swift// @an-attempt-at-living // the memory of a memory, katie maria // erica jong // secrets from a girl whos seen it all, lorde; poster by mlgrsdesign// ? // @n1ntendos // @fairycosmos // @inanotherunivrse //@robertszombie // @notbigthief
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