Yesterday Was The Circassian Day Of Mourning Where We Adyghe People Remember Our Ancestors That Were

Yesterday was the circassian day of mourning where we adyghe people remember our ancestors that were killed during a genocide that began in the 1840s, with deportations going on until the 1870s.

Our tribes lost many members during that time, with survivors being forced to leave our homelands, leaving almost no one behind. An estimated 70-90% of our people disappeared from our mountains, either dead or displaced.

I'd like to stress that us being muslim and indigenous was an important factor in all this.

I don't want to go into the details and would like to link to the wikipedia article instead, however it might be important to share at least a single story: since survivors of the first killings were forced across the Black Sea and then died on the way plenty of those that made it to the coast never ate fish again. They feared that those fish may have fed on their loved ones. To this day fish is not common in our cuisine and many still refuse to eat it.

Back then the Ottoman Empire offered us refuge (although to make it clear, circassian warriors and circassian women were popular and thus sometimes made to serve in certain roles), and so today most of us can be found in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and many former Ottoman territories but also in Germany and even the US. Thankfully we still exist in Kavkazye, but that's a minority.

I took a break from social media a bit, but now that I post this I also want to extend my respects to the communities that still face genocide, the palestinian and the uyghur people in particular.

Finally I'd like to remind everyone of this crucial thing:

Genocides do not start when the killings begin.

Genocides do not stop when the killings end.

Ten Fics!

I am finally doing this! :) :) Unfortunately, I can’t find the original post but I was tagged by caitlinispiningforjohnlock and cloisteredself. Here are ten fics that I love to death and that will always stick with me:

The Second Law of Thermodynamics by entanglednow- I wasn’t going to start reading johnlock. And then I read this fic.

The Violet Hour by breathedout- Hands down, one of my favorite fics of all time. 1920s historical AU where Sherlock and John get together while solving a case in the midst of the Bloomsbury crew. The writing is absolutely exquisite and John and Sherlock are unmistakably themselves in the fascinating backdrop of post-WWI England. It’s perfect in every way.

Ein Zimmer Mit Bad by breathedout- I think this fic actually contains my favorite sex scene in all of literature. John and Sherlock have angry, possessive, jealousy-induced sex in a giant copper bathtub in Berlin. Oh my god, it is everything.

What to do When Your Flatmate is Homicidal by hyacinthsky_747- This fic is so funny, and so touching and poetic, and just a delight from beginning to end.

Cooperative Principle by bendingsignpost- This fic ripped my heart out and threw it on the floor and trampled all over it with hob-nailed boots. And I loved every minute of it.

Yet by aderyn- Post-Reichenbach fic full of folklore, poetry, and loveliness. Every word is perfect.

Art and Nature by PoppyAlexander- Gorgeous, gorgeous historical AU where Sherlock is the butler and John is the gardener in a manor house in the 1920s. Sherlock is cold and remote and impeccable until John Watson comes to the house and slowly draws him out. When they are alone together, the way Sherlock comes apart just for John… Oh, it is to die for.

Landscape With The Fall of Icarus by CaitlinFairchild- This is the first story by caitlinispiningforjohnlock that I ever read and it seriously changed my life. This fic fucking knocked me off my feet and left me panting for breath. It was so good I didn’t even know what to do with myself when I finished it. It was a fic I didn’t even know how badly I needed until I read it. It helped me recover from season three. It is devastating in the most eloquent way.

Kings Among Runaways by allonsys_girl- This story is my life. I am obsessed with it. The brilliant anigrrrl2 is busy working on a myriad of other brilliant fics at the moment, but this one really gets me. Like reaches into my chest and does things with my heart gets me. It is vivid and searing and tender and gorgeous and so full of feeling I ache when I read it. And she’s only written four chapters so far.

All the Best and Brightest Creatures by wordstrings- I will continue to rec this fic until I die. It is on another level of fic-ness. Sometimes, I have to put off reading the updates for months and months because they are too good and I feel them too deeply and coming back to real life is sad and painful. That is how good this fic is. You live in it when you read it.

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solarpiracy

1 year ago

Here’s A Thing I’ve Had Around In My Head For A While!

Here’s a thing I’ve had around in my head for a while!

Okay, so I’m pretty sure that by now everyone at least is aware of Steampunk, with it’s completely awesome Victorian sci-fi aesthetic. But what I want to see is Solarpunk – a plausible near-future sci-fi genre, which I like to imagine as based on updated Art Nouveau, Victorian, and Edwardian aesthetics, combined with a green and renewable energy movement to create a world in which children grow up being taught about building electronic tech as well as food gardening and other skills, and people have come back around to appreciating artisans and craftspeople, from stonemasons and smithies, to dress makers and jewelers, and everyone in between. A balance of sustainable energy-powered tech, environmental cities, and wicked cool aesthetics.

A lot of people seem to share a vision of futuristic tech and architecture that looks a lot like an ipod – smooth and geometrical and white. Which imo is a little boring and sterile, which is why I picked out an Art Nouveau aesthetic for this.

With energy costs at a low, I like to imagine people being more inclined to focus their expendable income on the arts!

Aesthetically my vision of solarpunk is very similar to steampunk, but with electronic technology, and an Art Nouveau veneer.

So here are some buzz words~

Natural colors! Art Nouveau! Handcrafted wares! Tailors and dressmakers! Streetcars! Airships! Stained glass window solar panels!!! Education in tech and food growing! Less corporate capitalism, and more small businesses! Solar rooftops and roadways! Communal greenhouses on top of apartments! Electric cars with old-fashioned looks! No-cars-allowed walkways lined with independent shops! Renewable energy-powered Art Nouveau-styled tech life!

Can you imagine how pretty it would be to have stained glass windows everywhere that are actually solar panels? The tech is already headed in that direction! Or how about wide-brim hats, or parasols that are topped with discreet solar panel tech incorporated into the design, with ports you can stick your phone charger in to?

(((Character art by me; click the cityscape pieces to see artist names)))

How To Shop For Fabric Online

RIP Joann's. Now many places in the US no longer have a local fabric store, such as it even was toward the end.

There are some good posts going around about where to shop for fabric and craft supplies online, like this one for example. But if you're a beginner-to-intermediate sewist, and the way you've always shopped for fabric is by going to the store and touching it, it can be a hard, even cruel adjustment to suddenly be looking at a photo online and trying to piece together from the inconsistent descriptions what you're actually looking at.

So I'm going to just try to bang together a little primer on What Things Are Called, and how to educate yourself, so that you don't have to do what I did and just buy a ton of inappropriate stuff you wound up not being able to use for what you'd thought. And I will link to some resources that will help with this. This will be garment-sewing-centric but will, I think, be fairly broadly applicable.

The first thing is to look carefully at your desired project. If it is a commercial pattern, it will usually tell you what kind of fabric you need, but it will describe it in not the same words it's often sold under. If it is NOT a commercial pattern and you're kind of winging it, it's even harder. So here is how to start figuring out what you need.

Number one: Knit or Woven?

Quilting fabric is woven. If you are making a quilt, you want a woven. Most craft projects are made with woven fabric-- tote bags, upholstery, you name it.

Many garments are knits. T-shirts, yoga pants, cardigans. It is easy to know, because knits stretch. They can either stretch both ways (along the length and along the width) or just one way (usually along the width); this is confusingly either called 2-way stretch or 4-way stretch. Yes, stores are inconsistent. Look carefully at the description, and they will usually specify-- "along the grain" or "in all directions". Some garments require stretch only around the body-- maxi skirts, knit dresses etc-- while some absolutely need stretch both ways, like bathing suits.

No, you absolutely cannot clone your favorite knit t-shirt in quilting cotton. It will not fit. Most knit garments have "negative ease", meaning they are smaller than your body and stretch to fit. All woven garments have "positive ease", meaning they are larger than your body, unless very firm shaping undergarments are used.

SMALL EXCEPTION: There exist "stretch wovens", which are woven fabrics made with elastic fibers. These will be labeled as such. They are actually harder to sew with than regular wovens because they almost never have their stretch percentage labeled; they are NOT suitable for knit patterns. Avoid them, until you are more advanced and know how to accomodate them, is my advice!

Number two: WEIGHT.

How heavy is the fabric? How thick? How thin? This is measured in two main ways-- ounces per yard (denim is often 8oz, 10 oz, 12 oz) or grams per square meter. But many fabric retailers do not tell you a weight, they use words like "bottomweight" or "dress-weight", and you have to learn to figure out what they mean by that.

My lifehack for learning these has been go to go to ready-to-wear clothing retailers and see if they give the weights of the fabric their garments are made from. (Yes, I learned how to shop for clothes online instead of in-store years ago, because I am fat; some of us have had to do this a long time.)

If you are making a pair of trousers, you need heavier fabric than if you are making a blouse. Do not buy a floaty translucent chiffon to make your work trousers, it will not work no matter how cute the color is. Learn how the different weights of fabric are described, and you will improve your odds of finding what you need.

Number three: DRAPE.

Is it stiff? Is it fluid? Is it soft? is it firm? There are a lot of very artsy words used for this, and you may find yourself puzzling over things with a fluid hand, or a dry, crisp hand, or "a lot of drape", or maybe the listing doesn't describe it at all. This segues neatly into another technical thing, which is the WEAVE of the fabric. There is a dizzying array of words that tell you what kind of fabric it is-- twill, tabby, challis, chiffon, crepe, organza, georgette. And these will give you insight into the drape, and thus into the texture/usability of this fabric, and how suitable it may or may not be for your project.

I know it's a lot to think about but I am now going to give you resources for where to see all this stuff.

Number one is Mood Fabrics, which I can't believe hasn't been in any of the posts I've seen so far. They are a huge store in NYC's Fashion District and yes you can go there, but when I went there it overwhelmed me so much I left empty-handed. But what they have is AN INCREDIBLE WEBSITE. They have everything on there, and what's most important for you, their listings are INCREDIBLY consistent. They have VIDEOS of many of the fabrics, where a sales associate will hold it, wave it, stretch it, and tell you verbally what it is and what it's for, in about thirty seconds. HUNDREDS of these videos.

Whether you want to buy from them or not, go to Mood Fabrics, click around, find their listings, and read them. They will tell you fabric content, weight (usually gsm), often weave, they have little graphics that show you if it's for pants, dresses, shirts. And they have those videos. Look at the listings, watch the videos, and you will leave knowing a lot more about how to look at an online listing of fabric and know what you're getting.

Another really excellent website for this is Stonemountain & Daughter. I've actually not bought anything from them yet (they came highly recommended, but they're not cheap), but their online listings are, again, very thorough and very detailed. They always have a picture of the fabric with a fold in it held in place by a pin, which does more to help you understand the weight and drape of a fabric than any other static image ever could-- that visual, combined with how informative the listings are, has helped me learn to estimate fabric weights on other sites very effectively.

And here is a page that's ostensibly about how to wash silk, but I found it so useful because it gives such a clear image of what each weave/type of silk fabric looks and drapes like. I've never bought anything from these guys either, but this is a good resource.

Learn a little bit about fabric so you know what you're looking for, and you can begin to replace some of that "i just have to go and feel it in person" problem. There will still be trial and error, but you'll have a better starting place at least.

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solarpiracy

4 years ago

Do armadillos actually roll?

actually, the three-banded armadillo of south america is the only armadillo that actually rolls when in distress!

the larger and more common nine-banded armadillo of central and north america actually has too many bands in its shell to form a proper sphere, so what they do instead is... perform a three-foot vertical leap to startle an attacker and run like hell once they hit the ground, trusting their armor to protect them from attacks from the rear!

and for an animal completely covered in bone armor, they can sure pull a high rate of giddyup if they have to!

nyoom

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solarpiracy

1 year ago

Christopher Gray, 21, a Drexel University junior and CEO/Founder of Scholly, has found a way to make finding those scholarships easier.

Gray himself has been very successful in finding scholarship funds. He is known as the “Million-Dollar Scholar” after being awarded $1.3 million in scholarships.

Over the past three years, Gray has also helped other families manually scour through databases, and figured, “Hey, I need something that can help. There has to be a faster way.”

Gray developed the answer in the form of Scholly, an app that uses eight specific parameters, like state, GPA, or race, to instantly filter through a deep directory of scholarships available for the prospective student.

“It’s extremely simple,” says Gray and that ultimately was the goal.

“The fact that it’s on the mobile (phone) really hits the audience,” says Soham Bhonsle, 21, a Scholly user and Drexel University senior. “It serves the need of its time. We want it on the go.”

Nicholas Pirollo, chief technological officer for Scholly, also offers that apps optimize searches compared to standard websites because they are more tailored to specific needs.

A recent study, conducted by Sallie Mae, shows that 39% of families used scholarship funds to pay for college during the 2012-2013 academic year and Scholly connects users with relevant scholarships in about five minutes. Scholly’s database is updated monthly to remove scholarships that are no longer available, add scholarships, and refresh deadlines.

There is money out there to go to school. Scholly has more than 10,000 downloads of the $0.99 app found in the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Scholly’s costs are intentionally positioned at an affordable price to serve more people that need it and boast a potential big payoff.

“Pay 99 cents and you may get $5,000 or $6,000 in scholarships.”

Scholly helps put the power of funding your education in your hands.