Smash that mf reblog button if you stoically ignore all labelled washing instructions and everything your mama ever told you about laundry and just send those bastards hurgling around in an overfilled tub to meet either death or glory
Something I learned from a costume designer: if an item can be washed multiple ways the designer is only legally obligated to put one of the ways on the tag, but if there’s only one way to wash that item they have to put Only on the instructions
If the tag says “Dry Clean” it’s safe to machine wash but the designer thinks it looks better if you get it dry cleaned
But if it says “Dry Clean Only” you will destroy it if you wash it any other way
Reblogging for that last bit which this 37 yr old adult did not lnowy
Nice! “Dry clean only” is a deal-breaker for me on whether I’ll buy an article of clothing. I have more options knowing that “dry clean” means it’s just optional.
People don’t often look back on the early 1900’s for advice, but what if we could actually learn something from the Lost Generation? The New York Public Library has digitized 100 “how to do it” cards found in cigarette boxes over 100 years ago, and the tips they give are so practical that millennials reading this might want to take notes.
Back in the day, cigarette cards were popular collectibles included in every pack, and displayed photos of celebrities, advertisements, and more. Gallaher cigarettes, a UK-founded tobacco company that was once the largest in the world, decided to print a series of helpful how-to’s on their cards, which ranged from mundane tasks (boiling potatoes) to unlikely scenarios (stopping a runaway horse). Most of them are insanely clever, though, like how to make a fire extinguisher at home. Who even knew you could do that?
The entire set of life hacks is now part of the NYPL’s George Arents Collection. Check out some of the cleverest ones we could find below. You never know when you’ll have to clean real lace!
When I was a child, from the time I was about four and could understand things, my mom told me and my brother that we should have a secret word. That way, if we were ever in trouble or felt unsafe and we didn’t want the people around us to know we needed her to come get us, we could let her know. So she let us pick the word and my brother and I chose the phrase “peanut butter cups.” (I’m happy to share the phrase now since both my brother and I are adults now).
I used the phrase twice in my life. Once, I was at a friends house when I eight years old. Her dad got really drunk and was throwing things against the wall. I was really scared and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself on the phone when I called my mom to come get me because I didn’t know if he would get more violent if I asked her to come get me. So I called her and was calm and after a couple minutes I asked “Hey mommy, did you get me those peanut butter cups from the store?” And she said “I’ll be right there.” And she came and got me within minutes.
Second, I was a teenager spending the night at a friends house. Her brother and dad were drinking and they started talking about things that made me uncomfortable – ie: what they liked to do to women. My friend didn’t seem perturbed and said that was normal for them and that I shouldn’t worry. But I was worried because they were really drunk and I was 15 and the only ‘woman’ around that wasn’t related to them. I went in my friends room, told her I needed to call my mom and say goodnight. Before I hung up with her I asked “Next time we go to the store, can we get some peanut butters cups? I’ve been craving them.” And she came and got me, just like that.
Two incidents, one as a young child, one years later as a teen. Don’t discredit this stuff, it fucking works. My brother used it a few times too. Let your child pick the word and no never, ever, ever, ever get mad at them for using it no matter what it is.
DO NOT SCROLL PAST THAT.
please ALWAYS reblog, these are so good and clever
The app is called Be My Eyes and allows blind people to phone or message for help. The app seems to allow video and photos to be sent and the sighted person on the other end can send a message to the blind person, answering whatever inquiry they have.
[This is a set of screenshots about the app called Be My Eyes.
First photo: The overview page for the app. The top says “Be My Eyes- helping the blind.”
Second photo: The preview page on the app store. It shows two phones. The one on the left is titled “Volunteer” and says “Join the community and help it grow.” The one on the right is titled “Blind.” The phone under the title has “Call first available volunteer,” written in large font.
Third photo: More previews. Shows the messages between two people texting each other. The visually impaired person sent a picture of two cans of food, and is asking which one is beans. Another example shows the person sending a picture of their milk carton, and asking if it is expired.
Fourth photo: An iphone lock screen. A notification from the app says “a blind or visually impaired person is calling for help.”
Fifth photo: The profile page of a sighted user named Francis, who speaks English and Español. The top says there are 74,768 Blind and 1,033,846 Volunteers using the app.
Sixth photo: Text that says “Learn how to answer a call. When a blind or visually impaired person requests help, the app notifies multiple volunteers, and the first to respond is connected. The notification might look different whether your phone is locked or unlocked. Here you can try both scenarios.
Seventh photo: A notification from the app on an iphone home screen. The instructions say to pull the notification down or tap it to answer a call.
Eighth photo: The same notification on an iphone lock screen. The instructions say to tap it or slide it to answer the call.]
Please reblog the version of this post with image descriptions. It’s a service for blind folks, posted about in a format blind folks don’t have access to (without the descriptions).
Also, if you’re willing to download and use this app but you don’t go out of your way to add image descriptions to the images you share, please reevaluate that! Contact me if you need help adding image descriptions to things.
This app is actually very useful. The way sighted people are talking about it is not.
Reminder for parents that though you may be struggling, it is never appropriate to use your child as your therapist/counselor. It’s unhealthy for the both of you.
Can I ask why? I’m genuinely curious
There’s a few reasons as to why its wrong.
For one, a kid is not equipped to handle a parent’s problems. I’m not saying to never express your feelings or say that you’re having a problem to a child. That can be healthy. But to use them to just dump on is too much. Children just aren’t equipped to deal with the heaviness of adult problems, especially if they’re already going through things themselves.
Two, the inherent power imbalance makes it really uncomfortable. Your child isn’t your friend, they’re your child. Even if they can offer advice, this sort of thing can become like a role reversal. They also would have a hard time separating themselves from it when it becomes too much. A lot of parents feel entitled to their childrens’ time and space, so the children can become overburdened with no reprieve and no way to express that this isn’t their job.
There’s probably more and better ways to explain this, but that’s my two cents on this.
Because I was the oldest child when my parents marriage was collapsing both of them used me to vent about the other, forcing me to justify their negative feelings about a person that I loved by virtue of their place in my life. At 10 years old I was attempting to negotiate the workings of an adult relationship that had never worked and validate their emotions without being harmful to the other. All the while I was deteriorating into an even more depressed and anxious reclusive child, losing friends and and missing out on normal experiences. I felt like I was responsible for the survival of their relationship, above my own well-being I had to figure out how to save them from divorce, from splitting the family up. I never felt like I had the right to tell them I couldn’t handle it. So I shoved everything down and became weirdly mature, too aware of the fact that I was an adult even if I didn’t want to be. Now I have severe anxiety, depression, and PTSD and I can’t even keep a job. I’m 28. Don’t do this to your kids. Please.
This is one form of whats known as parentification.
My father, having zero support from my mother, would seek me out during his depressive bouts and tell me about how much he wanted to die, over and over. Sometimes I even cleaned and bandaged the wounds. He told me he couldn’t talk to anyone else and I was his entire lifeline. I was nine.
In a similar vein my mother blames me all the time for not leaving my father when she wanted to. She would vent to me about how awful a man he was, how much she hated him and wanted to leave him. And then tell me it was my fault she didn’t because of what I had said. I was twelve. The fuck did I know about life other than it was awful and I was having to hide shit from social work and feeling like it was my fault.
I’m 30 now and they still do this to me. They still try to find ways to other themselves from their failure to protect me and my brother from themselves and make it my responsibility, then try to sugar coat it with “but you were such a good child” or “you’re such a great listener” or “you were so much older than your years”, like yea, cause someone fucking had to be.
Please, do not do this to your children. Please. Get help from an appropriate source, for your sake and theirs. I cannot stress how damaging this shit was to my psyche.
If anybody is driven more by imperical evidence over anecdotal evidence: yes, studies do indeed exist. Here are a few to thumb through.
As the last article states, research is still relatively new on the subject. The earliest studies I’ve been able to find were dated in the late 1980’s-to-early 1990’s, with study groups ranging in sample size. Evidence so far suggests that parentification — surprise! — functionally impacts children the same as emotional abuse. To the surprise of virtually no CoA/ACoA, this type of role reversal seems to be a particular trend among alcoholic parents.
You can’t just tell people to ‘get a VPN (Virtual Private Network)’. Buying a VPN is like buying a house. It’s very very important. Having no VPN or having a ‘wrong’ one can seriously damage your life. Especially for Americans because their privacy laws are garbage. I am going to try explain why you should get a VPN but bare with me, I am from Germany and my English is far from perfect.
Let’s start with a simple test. Click this link here: https://whatismyipaddress.com/ It will tell your IP adres, your ISP (internet service provider), and your location. The location might not be very accurate, but then again, it’s just a simple website. Imagine what the government can do!
So basically, everyone can find out where you live. But there is more danger. Your ISP. Your ISP logs your every move online and they are required to keep it in case the government wants access to it (or if a 3rd party wants to buy your data (yikes). They have everything. What websites you visit. How long you stay on a website. What you download. Your search terms. European laws are more subtle on this but if you are from the US you are #@*#&, especially because Trump doesn’t support the open internet. It’s scary but maybe in the future you can’t get a job because the recruiter knows your searched on ‘how to deal with depression’ or anythings else that’s supposed to be private because it’s your f*cking right. Or you get a $100k fine because you pirated a movie 15 years ago. You need a VPN. You’re dumb for not using one. but what does a VPN do?
A VPN encrypts all your data so if it were be intercepted no one can ‘crack the code’ and damage your privacy.
Usually being online goes like this (simplified): Your computer —-> ISP (—–> keeps data —–> sells it)
But with a VPN it goes like: Your computer —–> VPN (encrypts data)—–> ISP (ISP can’t see shit)
Furthermore, a VPN hides your IP address and location by giving you another IP address located in Spain for example (you can often choose from a list and change as many times as you want).
Now that you know why you should get a VPN and what is does it is important to educate yourself because people often choose the wrong VPN. VPN providers are also businesses and have to obey the law. If you choose a VPN provider located in the US then you are throwing your money away because the laws in the US shits on your privacy. If the US gov wants the provider to give all their logs they have to obey. The ISP still can’t see what you are doing online and sell your data but the US gov can interfere with your VPN provider so NEVER CHOOSE A PROVIDER LOCATED IN THE US.
I just wanted to make that very clear so my followers don’t buy false security.
There is still more danger! Who says your VPN provider isn’t selling your data? You need to check their logging policy. Do they keep logs? If yes, what for? For how long do they keep them? Tip: Choose a provider who doesn’t keep logs
More about law The US is part of the Five Eyes program (the worst):
The Five Eyes, often abbreviated as FVEY, is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries are bound by the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence (source)
There is also a Nine Eyes (bit better) and Fourteen Eyes Program (better). You don’t want a VPN provider who is located in one the Five Eyes countries. If you had to choose go for a provider located in a country that’s part of the Fourteen Eyes Program or even better, go for a country that isn’t part of any program!
I know this is a shitty explanation and please pardon my english but now it’s time to do your own research. Take your privacy seriously. Maybe WWIII breaks out and you get killed for liking the ‘wrong’ FB-page.
Make sure that your future VPN provider both has green boxes for Privacy Jurisdiction and Privacy Logging.
I recommend ovpn.se and trust.zone. ovpn is located in Sweden so they are part of the 14 Eyes Program and they keep minimal logs. Their business ethics, however, are alright.
Trustzone is located in the Seychelles. No country can interfere and their privacy jurisdiction is the best you can get. The US want your data but needs to get it from Trustzone? The Seychelles will simply give them the finger and wave them goodbye. However, this makes this provider very appealing for people who torrent and criminals because they keep no logs (and that is how it shoud be) Also, there are almost no marketing efforts so this provider is one the cheapest)
Also, often providers such as ExpressVPN are being called ‘The Best’ on websites about VPNs but know that this is just marketing which also makes those provider more expensive (and they too shit on your privacy)
This must be the worst article you have ever read but please, please take your privacy very seriously.
I am also with Trustzone but I think you forgot to explain one of it’s most important features. It protects you when you are using someone else’s Wi-Fi. If you are at Starbucks and you use their Wi-Fi your privacy is at risk. Anyone with ill intentions could steal your information. Especially if you are using an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot. With a VPN your data gets encrypted so no one can steal it.
Wait, what’s going, on? Did trump destroy internet privacy with a bill or something? Where’s the news? Oh wait, why am I getting visions of Alex Jones and selling water purifiers?
He hasn’t yet but he says he wants to. And if he is serious about it it would be really easy to do. Since all our data is already recorded, as the person above explained.
Trump wants more surveillance of Muslim Americans. This in a country where internet privacy is already close to non-existent.
To all my friends in the US, please read this entire post. Making everyone aware of VPNs is going to be my mission. Your privacy matters. Please reblog this post.
Don’t tell me you just wanted to scroll past this. Stop looking at pictures of cats for a moment, okay? Don’t you realize how important this is? This is dangerous! ‘America, the best FREE country in the world’ my ass.
With this new law your ISP can sell your Internet history which could include passwords, usernames, religion, credit card numbers, race and much more to the highest bidder. So here is what I want you to do.
You are going to read the whole thing and before you think ’this is so important. Let me reblog this real quick and go back to admiring cats again-’ NO! Don’t reblog this. Take action first. Then reblog. Sign up for a free trial! Trust.Zone offers one (here). Yes. It might be difficult to set up a VPN for some people. But is that going to stop you from protecting yourself and your family? 30 minutes. 30 minutes is all that it takes. 5 if you know how to install software. The problem with some of you is that you see ‘difficult’ as something negative. I want you to see difficult differently. I need you to push through this stuff. You are going to protect yourself. There is nothing negative about that.
VPNs are fun and costsaving too! A VPN bypasses geographical restrictions so you can access websites you normally can’t or you could start Netflix’s one month free trial over and over again- forever. And it’s legal! (unless you use it to buy weapons etc.,)
Don’t tell yourself that you are too tired and that you will do this tomorrow. Because that isn’t going to happen and you know it. You have to do this right now. You only have to click on it.
Don’t let this/shit/life just happen to you. Take yourself seriously. Get a VPN.
Privacy is not a privilege, it’s a fundamental human right
Ok sorry that it’s so freaking long and also sorry for the language, but this is extremely important. Please reblog!
This is from the forecast discussion of Major Hurricane Florence from this afternoon. As a meteorologist, when I saw this, my heart sank. They don’t use wording like this for every storm.
Florence is going to be a devastating. There will be huge amounts of flooding, both from inland rain and from costal storm surge. Winds are going to be some of the strongest you can get from a hurricane. People within the path of this storm could lose everything.
If you know anyone who lives on the North or South Carolina coast, tell them that if there’s an evacuation ordered, they need to get the hell out. Do not take chances with this one.
Reblogging again to add a list of things/essentials from a friend who lives on the NC coast and has weathered hurricanes and other bad weather:
– toiletries (paper towels, toilet paper, baby wipes for “bathing” in case power & water go out)
– water, 1 gallon per person for at least 7 days (err on the side of caution if possible); more if you have animals!!
– non perishable food items, if you get canned food make sure you have a can OPENER
– pet food & supplies, if you’re really worried about flooding it may be beneficial to get life vests for your pets, also find a way to put identification information on them!
– batteries
– flashlights
– battery packs for cell phones charged up in case of loss of power
– filled cars with gas & filled gas can(s)
– get all essentials like passports, important docs, and cherished items together & ready to go
– just in case, determine a way to get onto your roof safely
– fill bathtubs with water so if water isn’t available you can refill the toilets to keep flushing and keep waste to a minimum
– if you have dogs look up how to make a makeshift potty, you can use a hard baby pool and some sod potentially
– check your prescriptions and get them refilled now if necessary
– if you’re taking insulin and lose power, fill a separate cooler for your insulin than the one you would use for food. Insulin > food
If your place begins to flood get the hell OUT of the water!!! There is no telling if you have a live electrical charge in there!
Do not cross any water you cannot see the bottom of the ground in. I’m serious.
One of my favorite things to see is random people trying to interact with unfamiliar outdoor cats. Just standing there with a hand out, making kissy noises, maybe meowing at the cat while it ignores them. Mankind at its best and least dignified
if you want to interact with a cat that doesn’t know you, sit down not facing it. glance at it occasionally and make an inviting noise, but mostly just play with your phone or whatever.
the cat will almost certainly come over to check you out sooner or later. it’ll stay out of arm’s reach because it doesn’t know if you’re a jerk. offer your hand and let the cat sniff. wait. if the cat wants pettins, it will indicate that by noofing your hand, flopping on its side, or coming in close.
the cat may want to be bros but not get pettins. in that case, it will sit or lie near you but out of reach. this is friendly! the cat is saying, you’re a person in my neighborhood! hi neighbor!
of course, it’s possible that the cat is a great big cuddleslut and will come love all over you. that happens too. but if it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean it’s an unfriendly cat. be chill and let the cat choose how close to get, and you’ll find most cats are pretty friendly.
I’ve seen a bunch of people in the notes concerned (like I was) of comparisons of members of the lgbt to dogs: but upon visiting their website I was reassured that they monitor a variety of content, including (but not limited to):
THIS IS A GOOD SITE
I just wanna reblog this here and point out that this is actually a site I use a lot.
Im not one of those who get like overly upset by passing of dogs in movies, but growing up in a family where we had to put down a lot of dogs ourselves that we loved very dearly, it does break the immersion for me, which ruin movies.
Stressed, Depressed, and Story Obsessed 