Latest Posts by aikokima - Page 5

This is a lot more helpful than you may think...

Whenever I see someone refer to "Victorian era-" for places outside the UK I'm tempted to start saying shit like "Han Dynasty era Rome", "Soviet era Australia" etc

Louder for everyone who needs to hear!!

Source

“Image Credit: Carol Rossetti

When Brazilian graphic designer Carol Rossetti began posting colorful illustrations of women and their stories to Facebook, she had no idea how popular they would become. 

Thousands of shares throughout the world later, the appeal of Rosetti’s work is clear. Much like the street art phenomenon Stop Telling Women To Smile, Rossetti’s empowering images are the kind you want to post on every street corner, as both a reminder and affirmation of women’s bodily autonomy. 

“It has always bothered me, the world’s attempts to control women’s bodies, behavior and identities,” Rossetti told Mic via email. “It’s a kind of oppression so deeply entangled in our culture that most people don’t even see it’s there, and how cruel it can be.”

Rossetti’s illustrations touch upon an impressive range of intersectional topics, including LGBTQ identity, body image, ageism, racism, sexism and ableism. Some characters are based on the experiences of friends or her own life, while others draw inspiration from the stories many women have shared across the Internet. 

“I see those situations I portray every day,” she wrote. “I lived some of them myself.”

Despite quickly garnering thousands of enthusiastic comments and shares on Facebook, the project started as something personal — so personal, in fact, that Rossetti is still figuring out what to call it. For now, the images reside in albums simply titled “WOMEN in english!“ or ”Mujeres en español!“ which is fitting: Rossetti’s illustrations encompass a vast set of experiences that together create a powerful picture of both women’s identity and oppression.

One of the most interesting aspects of the project is the way it has struck such a global chord. Rossetti originally wrote the text of the illustrations in Portuguese, and then worked with an Australian woman to translate them to English. A group of Israeli feminists also took it upon themselves to create versions of the illustrations in Hebrew. Now, more people have reached out to Rossetti through Facebook and offered to translate her work into even more languages. Next on the docket? Spanish, Russian, German and Lithuanian.

It’s an inspiring show of global solidarity, but the message of Rossetti’s art is clear in any language. Above all, her images celebrate being true to oneself, respecting others and questioning what society tells us is acceptable or beautiful.

“I can’t change the world by myself,” Rossetti said. “But I’d love to know that my work made people review their privileges and be more open to understanding and respecting one another.””

From the site: All images courtesy Carol Rossetti and used with permission. You can find more illustrations, as well as more languages, on her Facebook page.

My first thought was that this was something Anthony Bordain had said, because of how it's worded. But while I know it's likely not, I think I will be trying it out.

Take a red onion. Caramelize it. Add garlic. Add tomato paste. Add smoked paprika (a lot). Add 1 can of butter beans. Mix. Juice 1 lemon. Add the juice. Add sriracha. Add heavy cream. Add spinach. Serve with bread or over rice. Cry over how fucking good it tastes. The only “cooking” you have to do is cooking your onion down. Everything else is just adding shit. You don’t even have to measure it’s just to taste. It’s very good, very filling (1 can could probably feed 2 people). Got veggies in there, got protein. Very little effort required

Because even when it's not spoopy season, it's going to be good to know!

Spoopy Season Safety

I adore this!!

My alphabet be like...

This one made me laugh, my sister is something of a grammar fiend!

trying to explain english to an italian

FINALLY!!! I saw something like this a while back and have been trying to find where it was. And I agree with this 💯, okay?

Friday Reminder

I have always been fascinated with history but this absolutely shows that we're still learning about it even today.🌍🌎🌏

I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them.

This is something that I've known about for nearly forever but I've come to realize that not everyone has a biology Aunt or doesn't end up learning about it in chemistry...

Okay, this one made me laugh, every thing about it 🤣

idea: scene with two characters eagerly stripping each other clearly about to bone, but they keep getting interrupted by finding carefully concealed weapons in each other’s clothing, so they keep just unholstering, revealing and unstrapping increasingly ludicrous amounts of hidden guns and knives as the clothes come off, and it’s lowkey killing the mood a little

This, I had a scare myself and while it wasn't anything bad, it could have been.

I needed this, too, and really thank you for actually spelling it out for people.

Sherlock X Zelda... I'm not sorry...

combine your first real fandom with your current one to create a terrible, terrible au

This, one of my cousins told me most of this but it's always good to have.

So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days

Hi.

This is literally my job.

Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.

PROCESSOR

Intel i5 (no older than 10th Gen)

Ryzen 7

You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)

RAM

8GB absolute minimum

If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)

STORAGE

256GB SSD

Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.

A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.

But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.

SCREEN (laptop specific)

Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.

A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.

On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.

Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"

FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)

If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.

There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).

If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.

Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.

WARRANTY

Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.

Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.

So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.

And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.

LIFESPAN

There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."

At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.

COST

This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.

If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)

Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.

If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

14" Lenovo - $670 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD

15.6" HP - $540 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

14" Dell - $710 - 12th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

SFF HP - $620 - 10th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD

SFF Lenovo - $560 - Ryzen 7 5000 series, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Dell Tower - $800 - 10th-gen i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.

Anyway happy computering.

This, I'm bad at speaking up about anything (don't deal well with conflict of any sort) but it really is easier each time.

kids remind me, often, of the things i've taught myself out of.

i have a big dog. he looks like a deer. he is taller than most young children. while we were on a trail the other day, a boy coming our direction saw us and froze. he took a step back and said: "i'm feeling nervous. your - your dog is kind of big."

goblin and i both stopped walking immediately. "he is kind of a big dog," i admitted. "he's called a greyhound. they are gentle but they are pretty tall, which is kind of scary, you're right. their legs are so long because they are made for running fast. i am sorry we scared you. would you like us to stand still while you move past us, or would you feel more safe in your body if we move and you stay still?'

"oh. i didn't know that about - greyhounds. i think i ... i want to stay still," he said. at this point, his adult had caught up to us. "i'm nervous about the dog," he told her, "so i'm - i'm gonna stay still." she didn't argue. she didn't make fun of him. she just smiled at him and at me and held his hand while goblin and i, with as wide of a berth as we could make, crept our way through.

behind us, i heard him exhale a deep breath and kind of laugh - "he was really big, huh? she said it's because greyhounds have to go fast."

"he was big," she said. "i understand why that could have made you a little scared."

"yeah. next time i - next time do you think i could maybe ask to touch him? when - i mean, next time, maybe, if i'm not nervous."

later, going to a work event, in the big city, i stood outside, trembling. my social anxiety as a caught bird in my chest. i took a deep breath and turned to my coworker. she's not even really my friend yet. i told her: "i feel nervous about this. i am not used to meeting new people, ever since covid."

she laughed, but not in a mean way. she said she was nervous too. she reached her hand out and held mine, and we both took another deep breath and walked in like that, interlinked. a few people asked us - together? - and i told the truth: i feel nervous, and she's helping. over and over i watched people relax too, admitting i feel really kind of shy lately actually, thank you for saying that.

the next time i go to an event, and i feel a little scared, i ask right away: wanna hold hands? this feels a little dangerous. i hesitate less. i don't hide it as much. i watch for other people who are also nervous and say - it's kinda hard, huh?

i know, logically, i'm not good at asking for help. but i am also not good at noticing when i need help. i've trained myself out of asking completely, but i've also trained myself to never accept my own fears or excuses. i have trained myself to tamp down every anxiety and just-push-through. i don't know what i'm protecting myself from - just that i never think to admit it to anyone.

but every person on earth occasionally needs comfort. every person on earth occasionally needs connection. many of us were taught independence is the same thing as never needing anything.

each of us should have had an adult who heard - i feel nervous and held our hand and asked us how we could be helped to feel safe. no judgement, and no chiding. many of us did not. many of us were punished for the ways that we seemed "weak".

but here is something: i am an adult now. and i get nervous a lot, actually. and if you are an adult and you are feeling a little nervous - come talk to me. we can hold hands and figure out what will help us feel safe in our bodies. and maybe, next time, if we're brave, we can pet the dog that's passing.

Because it's true, you may never know who needs to know this.

FEMA is doing an emergency alert test on all TVs, radios, and cell phones on October 4, 2023, at approximately 2:20pm ET.

If you live in the US and you have a phone you need to keep secret for any reason, make sure that it is turned off at this time.

Yes, I'm doing this months in advance, and yes, my blog has very little reach, but I figure better to post about it more than less.

Please reblog and add better tags than mine, I'm bad at tags.

This, okay, all of this!

i don't want a career, i want to do crafts

😂😂🤣🤣

• An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.

• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

• A question mark walks into a bar?

• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."

• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

• A synonym strolls into a tavern.

• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

• A dyslexic walks into a bra.

• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony

- Jill Thomas Doyle

This is something I will see about getting myself, but the bit about the Always pads doesn't surprise me 😕

i learned that in August 2014 Women’s Voices for the Earth commissioned testing of four types of Always menstrual pads, manufactured by Procter & Gamble. The certified laboratory STAT Analysis Corporation analyzed the products for volatile organic compound.

“The results of the testing indicate that both scented and unscented Always pads emit toxic chemicals, including chemicals identified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Toxicology Program, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and the State of California Environmental Protection Agency as carcinogens, and reproductive and developmental toxins. None of these chemicals are disclosed on the product by the manufacturer.” (x)

But also it means that sometimes we don't even register the body sensation if we're doing something that has all our attention.

For years I would look at posts and questionnaires about neurodivergence that takes about being so focused on something that you forgot to eat and be like, "Couldn't be me. Being hungry is so uncomfortable! Your stomach is growling and cramping? How do you ignore that?"

Then someone informed me that neurotypical people have a whole bunch of "hungry" sensations before they get to that point.....

This!! Yes and yes and yes!!!

It drives me a little spinny when I see people posting “Why Aziraphale doesn’t just keep his books at home if he doesn’t want to sell them” because it seems to me to so clearly be a riff on real life antiquarian bookshops?

I worked in a used and rare book shop for five years, and have frequented them since I was young, and Aziraphale is like, a type of guy who just exists. An older fellow who refuses to keep his books in any sort of order, neglects to write prices in, opens at wildly varying hours, and by all accounts does not seem to want to be in business at all. The answer I found, by the end, was because many of them were doing it as a sort of retirement hobby. They made enough money to keep the lights on and to buy new rare books to look at.

I swear to you: nobody in the book business would bat an eye at Aziraphale. Especially if his shop had been there for generations. They would assume that the occasional loose encyclopedia plate sale would be enough to make rent, or that Mr. Fell had business and land holdings elsewhere.

And I assume that though he doesn’t want to sell them, he would LOVE a curious browser. Antiquarian vendors often adore it when you ask how to find a rare book, because the thrill of the hunt is often better than actually owning the volume. Anyone can have a private library, but owning a quaint little bookshop is a saucy way to brag and chat with other book lovers, and you can’t put that on your shelf at home.

Is it bad that I read the last set in his voice?😂🤣

I truly am obsessed with how Knives Out was like. Hello Daniel Craig, man who has spent the past two decades of his career being alternately beaten up and objectified playing an action hero with no personality. Would you like to please put on a shirt and an incomprehensible vaguely Texan accent and flex your character acting dark comedy muscles as well as your pecs for a while. And he's like BOY WOULD I and they made a work of art. Also love that they put Chris Evans in sweaters. Get your beefcakes then dress them nice make them soft and give them some bonkers character work to do it's what cinema needs more of

This, okay, all of this!!!

We need like “unclench your jaw” posts but for eye strain. Like

Go look at something 20ft away for 20 seconds.

Why is that so accurate!!? 😂🤣

First, all of this, but second, it's okay if you only had the spoons to do the basics and nothing else too!💜

I just came across this and honestly, 🤣🤣🤣 but also take my money 💰💰💰!!!

*inspired by that Obi Wan's false sense of superiority post* What we need is an animated series about the psychologist who has to deal with these sentient tire fires. I mean, I'm a human tire fire and even I get help, these guys have no excuse. It needs to be filmed like The Office and as tongue-in-cheek as possible

Look I would pay real currency to watch a series of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s couples counseling. The angst and the passive-aggressiveness and the “I’m fine it’s fine everything’s fine” “NO IT’S NOT OBI-WAN NOTHING IS FINE”. Or individual Jedi counseling.

Better: I want to watch the documentary/mockumentary made by a GFFA psychologist who embeds themselves with the Jedi Order to better understand how they can all be so chill and collected – What’s their secret? How can we all learn, from their example, to embrace serenity in our own lives? – who eventually, as the documentary wears on, comes to realize that THE JEDI ORDER IS COMPRISED ENTIRELY OF EMOTIONAL TRAINWRECKS.

Being of Jewish decent, it's amazing to be able to see this!💜🌈

Gay weddings from different cultures

THIS!!!! So far I, along with my sister and her two children as well as my younger brother have at least autistic habits.

Fun fact: I’m autistic I’m gonna do a thing inspired by another person

Reblog if your blog is safe for autistic people or is ran by an autistic person!

oh and

Reblog if you stand against Autism Speaks!

That look of 'not this again'🤣

[image description: an image depicting an dark-haired woman with a peeved expression on her face, wearing black and gray. end description]

Probably a face Kei makes a lot during crossovers, not gonna lie. It’s very much embodying the “oh, not this shit again” vibe.

Here’s the link to the picrew.

This is very similar to how I invisioned her!

@langwrites I doodled Kei!! I hope you don’t mind!