Apartment Hacks Masterpost

not me realizing that with tumblr moving the icons to the side, it eliminates xkit, which was situated at the top. what a scumbag move

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL

“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”

fucked up how cooking and baking from scratch is viewed as a luxury…..like baking a loaf of bread or whatever is seen as something that only people with money/time can do. I’m not sure why capitalism decided to sell us the idea that we can’t make our own damn food bc it’s a special expensive thing that’s exclusive to wealthy retirees but it’s stupid as hell and it makes me angry

Executive Dysfunction Study Tips

(compiled by us, for us; not a comprehensive list by any means, just the ones that work well of our brain specifically)

dress in a Nice Outfit for the Aesthetic. Studying in slacks and a button-down or knit sweater or similar with a mug of tea has completely different vibes (and much more productive ones) than studying in pajamas, even if the clothes aren’t as comfortable. Besides, the faster we get work done, the faster we can change into Comfy Clothes and relax. 

in a similar vein, Beverage + Studying Music. Our go-to is corn tea and the LoZ ocarina of time soundtrack. lyrical music is fine for doing calculations, but for essays its instrumental only since the lyrics can fuck with the writing process. 

make that grid of everything you need to do from this post, with Check Boxes next to each thing for Checking Things Off (or you can cross them out if that’s more satisfying). Also gives an order and instruction for Starting The Thing which is usually the hardest part.

Imitate School Environment with “periods”, AKA studying for 40 minutes with a 5-10 minute “passing period” in-between, in which getting up and walking around is required. do not do “fun stuff” (reading/YouTube/etc) during passing period, or getting brain back on task will be Hell. our brain works best with a clear structure. Also, Set Alarms.

SNACKS!! snacks that are crumb free and don’t disturb the working process are best. I like pumpkin seeds, smoked salmon, apple/pear/peach/etc slices, cheese, and similar. washed bowls of fruit (grapes, cherries, strawberries, etc) make my fingers wet every time I eat them which is inconvenient, and I can’t eat most junk foods for allergy/health reasons (+ grease, cheese dust, etc are similarly impractical)

from this post, “make timelapses on your phone of u doing your work” providing the exact amount of Nervous Energy from being “watched” to be productive, without the anxiety of being criticized from having someone actually watch you. For an extra kick, actually post them to YT. 

have Separate Windows open for studying vs for fun stuff. I usually have three windows open on my laptop at all times – one for YT/reading (relaxing stuff), one for studying, and one for writing. 

set a Consistent Time To Work and Time To Stop Working, because brain stop working late at night when get tired, but brain also no work as soon as we get home from class, because we’re exhausted and need to take a break + eat first. 

in a similar vein, have a Work Time Ritual to get brain in the mood. Do the same thing every time its time to work so that you can pavlov yourself. For example, having a glass of water and and doing five jumping jacks, taking a shower, or getting changed into Studying Clothes. ADHD brain hates Transition Between Activities and also Starting Task so make it fun or relaxing. 

finally and most important!!!! sleep well, eat well, and when its time to stop working (NOT when work is done, but when its Time To Stop), take a break and do something relaxing. Work on hobby or lie in bed and read fanfiction. We don’t work past 10:00PM and we aren’t out of bed past 11:00PM. aint nothing going to get done if your body isn’t in a shape to get it done. As a system, sometimes we can see the body as a tool/instrument/machine separate from the mind/identity/personality, and you gotta keep that shit well-maintained or its gonna break down on you and you’ll have to take it to the repair shop. 

I have an essay brewing in my head constantly about lawns. Which, well, unsurprising, since I post about how I hate lawns all the time, but I think the "lawn" and "landscaping" centered way of thinking about Places Outside is a Bigger Thing that Connects to Other Things

(What isn't? Having ideas about concepts is always like this.)

I will introduce my ideas by a situation where they apply: Sometimes life-forms mimic other life forms. One form of mimicry is called Vavilovian mimicry, where weed species in crops grown by humans evolve over time to be more similar to the crops.

Vavilovian mimicry basically helps weeds survive because the weeds are adapted to the care-taking regimen of the crops, and because the human caretakers of the crop can have a hard time telling them apart, which means they might say "Ehh...I'll wait until it grows up so I can be sure I'm not pulling up my crop."

I think there's something similar at work among flower gardens and landscaping...but it's different.

Regular people don't know the name of every plant that might possibly grow in their flower beds, and they often pull up plants they don't know just because they don't know them. They sometimes say they pull up a plant that "looks weedy" or "looks like a weed."

I think to myself...what does "weedy" look like?

This question collided unexpectedly in my brain with an insight I had about invasive species that I could not explain.

I have to get rid of a lot of Callery pear, wintercreeper, honeysuckle, burningbush, privet, English ivy, and other plants that are invasive where I live. And strangely- many invasive plants look similar in ways they don't share with very many native species. They tend to have small, round or squat, glossy leaves, and they tend to have a very dense growth habit.

I can think of several possible explanations: Maybe these species thrive in North America today because of the loss of controlled burning, but their characteristics look so distinct next to native species because they relate to things that would make a species fire-intolerant? This doesn't seem quite right, since it doesn't predict level of fire-adaptedness in native species.

Another explanation is better: they were selected for these traits by humans for their usefulness in landscaping. Dense growth habit would be useful for creating hedges or ground covers. This is why many invasives were originally planted, right? And small leaves might feel or be perceived as less "messy" when they fall.

But I think this is a clue to something else going on. What does "weedy" look like?

Some plants go on one side of "weeds vs. flowers" and some on the other, and it's almost totally arbitrary...so how do gardeners make the call so decisively?

I think about the commonest "landscaping" plants- Knock Out roses, hostas, petunias, begonias, boxwoods and so on- they share a lot of the characteristics mentioned above. Shiny or at least smooth, typically small and squat leaves, dense and compact growth habit.

Then I think about some of the commonest and most important "weedy" native wildflowers, such as goldenrods, asters, milkweeds, Joe-Pye weed, ironweed, sunflower. They all differ from the above in at least one striking way. Mostly, they have hairy leaves and stems, long and thin leaves, and a tendency to grow up tall before blooming. Milkweed has smooth leaves, but its leaves are long and very big. Hmm...

And I think I can guess where this is coming from.

Landscaping and garden designs often look like this

See how the plants are drawn and arranged to cover a space in two dimensions, mostly not overlapping with each other? This is very easy to plan and design. And those common landscaping plants I mentioned—hostas, Knock Out roses, boxwoods, and so on—are very good at acting just like a two-dimensional representation of them does. Just look, you can see them:

Now look at those important native wildflowers I mentioned:

Goldenrod

Ironweed

Milkweed

These guys don't fill much space in a horizontal plane, they go straight up. They don't exclude other plants from very much space either. Plants could grow under them and among them. So they're not very good for "filling up" space, and their opener, lankier, less dense shape doesn't do a good job at blocking other plants from growing.

In a garden of North American prairie- or meadow-adapted plants, the plants wouldn't exclude each other and stay within their designated spots because they're evolved to intermix with a great variety of plants.

"Separateness" is a big part of the typical "landscape" aesthetic. These plants are very neatly separate from each other. This is what looks "neat" and well-kept to us...the opposite of "weedy."

This could mean our garden and flower beds are affected by a selective pressure a lot like the Vavilovian mimicry situation. But instead of weeds being selected to look like intentionally grown plants, the intentionally grown plants are being selected to look different from weeds.

The subtle difference makes perfect sense. In a field, the rule is "leave the plant there if you're unsure" because that's your food. In a flower bed, the rule is "get rid of the plant if you're unsure" because having weeds is more aesthetically unacceptable than having blank space.

The point is: Ecology needs to be a big part of gardening and landscaping, because you are DOING ecology. Even if you don't know the evolutionary principles, you're acting them out.

Just like the ineffable preferences of female birds give the males weird elaborate display structures, ineffable aesthetic "senses" that govern our "built" world slowly turn it into something weird.

Unique and out of the box language learning resources you probably haven’t heard of!

• Lyrics Training - Lyric fill in game

• Radio Garden - Listen to the radio anywhere in the world

• Language Reactor - Browser extension to learn with Netflix, YouTube, etc

• BaBaDum - Fun vocab games

• Linguno - Listening, vocab, and conjugation exercises, plus 10 daily crosswords in each language

• Bilinguis - Read a small selection of classic, older books in a bilingual side-by-side style. Some have audio reading as well!

• Lyrik Line - Read and listen to poetry in your target language!! Huge selection

• Top 40 Charts - Top 40 music hits in countries around the world.

• Kiosko - Daily newspaper covers all over the world. Clicking on one takes you to the news website to read more

• Lexicity - For all of you ancient language obsessed people!! Amazing and thorough resource for many ancient languages

-> Click on the link below to get links to all those sites + more information about them!

Plurilingualism

10 Unique Language Resources You Likely DONT Know⋆ Plurilingualism

These are 10 language learning resources that you have likely never heard of. Covering everything from audio to books to ancient languages.

If there was a way to run SUPER MEGA AD BLOCKER on this website I fucking would

being on tumblr for a long time but never reading homestuck like

Once upon a time I worked in this little burger/coffee/ice cream shop and a lady came in one winter and asked if we had a caramel apple drink and we were like ‘well we have cider’ and she was like ‘no I don’t remember what it’s called but this place made a drink that was chai tea, apple cider, and caramel’ and Breezy offered to try and make something for her but she changed her mind and left so Breezy and I were like ‘alright let’s try this’ because we had chai tea, instant cider mix, a shit ton of caramel, instant hot water from the espresso and too much free time. 

And let me tell you it was delightful. It tastes like watching the leaves changing color and dancing in the wind. It tastes like picking out pumpkins and gourds and fresh apples at the farm up north. It tastes like witches and freedom.

I make it every year now and this year I walked in the house on the morning of October first with all the ingredients and shouted ‘FALL DRINK’ and my roommates were like ‘????’ so I made them Fall Drink and now every time they get home from work they’re like ‘Fall Drink pls?????’

Anyway I remember literally nothing else about that woman but I’m very grateful to her.