xenophile trashpile

unauthorized fucking thing!!!!!!

(warning: loud chirping throughout)

the first osprey is the father, the one that comes later is the mother.

ospreys are not eagles, they're ospreys

ospreys only eat fish, that's why they don't register this starling as possible food

the starling got home safely

the starling was not trying to eat the eggs, it was mostly curious and you can see it trying to hop under the osprey every time the osprey tries to sit down again--this is because the starling is still a baby and has the instinct to get under an adult for warmth, even though it mostly has its feathers. this scares the osprey because that is a Foreign Creature near its eggs.

at the end of the video you can see the ospreys starting to turn the eggs. birds do this so the yolk and/or embryo don't stick to the shell of the egg, which is bad for the egg's health.

Using your fabric efficiently? Makes total sense. No objection to that.

But specifically designing patterns such that every single part of a length of fabric is consumed by it? You're setting people up to fail. For one, you can really only do this with patterns made mostly of rectangles and right triangles, which can only make a very narrow range of garments that simply do not play nice with many people's bodies (especially bodies with lots of curvature). For another, a zero-waste pattern is also a zero-error-tolerance pattern. One wrong cut or measurement and the whole thing's toast. The wiggle-room that a more standard pattern allows also allows you to fix problems when they occur.

If you make a zero-waste garment and never wear it because it looks bad on you? That's not actually zero-waste. If you start a zero-waste garment and can't complete it because you made one little mistake? That's not actually zero-waste.

But more importantly, the whole idea of 'zero-waste' as a desireable outcome is antithetical to the methods and traditions of sewing. It's a form of functionless, guilt-driven, aesthetics-first minimalism that has no place in actual sewing practice. The scraps of fabric left over from cutting a pattern are incredibly useful. Larger pieces can become parts of new projects. Smaller pieces can become patchwork. Even really tiny scraps can become stuffing or batting or kindling or any number of other things. Home sewing has always been about not wasting things, but the way to not waste things is not by piously making only garments that suck, it's by repurposing, reusing, and recycling everything you buy. Once that fabric reaches your house, 98% of its environmental impact has already happened.

An adorable comic I found on reddit and wanted to share.

please

please please please

please stop putting crosses on literally everything.

And then you actually look onto the research.

Kids do not generally hate learning or school. Quite the opposite. Children tend to enjoy learning and are naturally curious. It is exactly the fact that they are forced into school and into the rigid structure of it that often punishes curiosity but also is hostile towards the differences inherent in people, that kids hate it.

Kids do not naturally hate medical care. While medical care is scary at times, the fear usually comes from medical care scenarios being defined by adults overriding a child's agency, not explaining things to him, and otherwise being abusive, that makes children afraid of medical procedures. Additionally the way a lot of medical procedures go hand in hand with denying a child's reality ("Look, it is not that bad") tends to be traumatizing to children.

There have been studies done in this. If you explain a child - even a toddler - what you do and why, children will generally be a lot more okay with stuff like needles and simple procedures, and will even agree to necessary surgical interventions.

If you create a learning environment that allows more for self-directed learning, and involves less specific testing, most kids actually will enjoy learning.

But I don’t know - when I started work, many decades ago, it was expected you’d start at 9, finish at 5. You’d get your lunch break. You are expected to give about 70% of yourself the majority of your time. The last hour of each day and Friday afternoon were quiet times. There was time in the day to hang out with your coworkers for ten minutes talking about anything, not just work.

Now you’re expected to come in early and leave late and work through lunch. Give 100% all the time, more if you can push it. Don’t take leave. Work every second of every day as hard as you can push yourself. Do not waste time in the kitchen just chatting. Why aren’t you working harder?

And perhaps we’re burning out and take massive amounts of stress leave not because we’re not keeping a gratitude journal but because we are all being pushed to breaking point consistently, day after day, until we snap.

The older days weren’t perfect. But there was an understanding that work wasn’t life, and we could relax a little at work and still get paid enough to live. Now we are expected to give everything we’ve got, then give more, and not get paid enough to do something as simple as get a coffee after work. Even our hobbies are supposed to be monetised.