is it a natural and innate part of humanity or is it some shit they made up in europe

this is about the colonial enforcement of gender among many other things

I don't like it when people are trying to (even sympathetically) explain why teenagers can sometimes have emotional volatility as "well they're just biologically stupid and angry and bad because of their hormones and underdeveloped brain" with no mention to be found of the fact they're also still trapped in an incredibly oppressive environment 24/7.

working 12+ hour days for school without pay or the right to "switch jobs" to something better, often working a real job on top of that, still the legal property of their parents, can't even dye their own hair or use their own name or have a door to their own room in many many cases. yeah I would be at the end of my rope too, especially when dealing with the adults in my life who are enacting and/or facilitating the abuse! it feels pretty glaring to ignore this dynamic when talking about the strained emotional capacity of teenagers. did you forget? what it was like to not have the right to your own life yet? to be hurt 24/7? and then to have your (extremely reasonable!!!) emotional reactions dismissed as pure hysteria?

purely anecdotally, I'm also not convinced that teenagers are "biologically" more prone to volatility in a meaningfully distinct way tbh. thinking back to the people I knew as a teen vs the people I've known in adulthood, in both demographics there have been people prone to lashing out, and people who were completely stoic, and the differences between the two groups have always seemed to be split not along age or hormonal makeup but along life experiences and who had better support structures. (but again this is anecdotal, and somewhat besides the point. because even if there is a non-pseudoscience biologically provable difference in teenagers' brains that make them universally moodier across the board, perhaps they could better manage their own moods if they weren't being crazy abused as an entire class with no legal ability to escape.)

It’s so funny how like. Spock is queer bc of the subtext, the Otherness inextricable from his character, meanwhile William Shatner was handed the straightest man of all time on paper and fumbled the bag bc he couldn’t stop giving Leonard Nimoy fuck-me eyes and now he lives in a bi Kirk hell of his own devising, forever enduring the conshatquences of his shactions

I fully understand why describing a character of an unclear ethnic background as "ambiguously brown" is Not Good, but I started thinking about how the more you narrow it down, the funnier it gets to describe a character as "ambiguously" something.

"Ambiguously brown" - frankly that's just lazy, that could be anywhere. Just say "brown" if you really have to.

"Ambiguously African" - okay you have a vague guess of a continent

"Ambiguously Central Asian" - plausible to narrow down on sight if you're very familiar with people from around this region

"Ambiguously Baltic" - this mf is either Latvian or Lithuanian, and I am intrigued by the fact that your estimate is this precise but you still aren't confident enough in your assessment to guess which one

"Ambiguously Grevenan" - if you can tell greeks apart that closely, then frankly you're just flexing at this point

writer: "he was ambiguously American"

reader: "so wait, was he white? black? hispanic? Samoan?"

writer: "in the low light and dense fog, it was impossible to make out, but he was definitely eating a burger."

We need to isolate and start selectively breeding the plastic eating bacteria so we can optimise their efficiency, and then somehow splice their DNA into the gut bacteria of an obligate carnivore, so we can put it in our cats gut biomes so they'll finally be free of having to choose between whether they want to eat plastic or whether they want to live.

just found out you can do more than one thing each day. i was just doing the one

this literally isn't true please stop spreading lies

Diné Weaver Venancio Aragón

"From researching historic twill patterns in museum collections to dyeing wool with Kool-Aid, Diné (Navajo) weaver and instructor Venancio Aragón interlocks research and experimentation to expand the visual and technical vocabularies of Diné weaving. Working on the Diné upright loom, Aragón is part of a generation of Diné weavers who reinterpret ancestral knowledge through experimentation, carrying the medium forward on their own terms. As he stated in our interview with him, “I am not a purist.”

Based in Farmington, New Mexico, Aragón is trained in cultural anthropology and Native American and Indigenous studies, currently teaching at Diné College, the Navajo Nation’s tribal college. Before transitioning to full-time weaving and teaching, Aragón worked as an interpretive park ranger at the Mesa Verde, Aztec Ruins, Bandelier, and Petroglyph National Monuments, where he led tours and developed public education initiatives. He was born to the Tó’aheedlíinii (The Water Flow Together People) clan and born for the Naakaii (Mexican people). His maternal grandfather is of the Tsénahabiłnii (Sleeping Rock) clan, and his paternal grandfather is of the Naakaii (Mexican people)."

https://hyperallergic.com/dine-weaver-venancio-aragon.../...

OTC Meds of the Early 1900s

You’re probably aware of the old patent medicines- everything from harmless snake oils to very real, very dangerous concoctions of cocaine, morphine, belladonna, and alcohol that were sold without regulation by people who were more showmen than pharmacists.

And, likewise, you’re probably familiar with today’s over the counter (OTC) medications- the acetaminophen (paracetamol), ibuprofen, diphenhydramine, aspirin, loperamide, bismuth subsalysate- that you would find in the local pharmacy, drug or grocery store. 

But you might not be aware that there was a period in between these. Where there was some government regulation, some knowledge that you probably didn’t need (and didn’t want) morphine for your cough, but where the pharmacy knowledge wasn’t quite where it is today as far as making medicine relatively safe for consumers to purchase without a prescription.

Well I recently went to an antique mall with a whole section devoted to early OTC drug packaging, and found it absolutely fascinating. I did some research on what I found for you guys- hope you find it as interesting as I did!

Painkillers/Analgesics:

The first two are both marketed as “Laxative Cold Tablets” and contain a drug called “Acetanilide.” Acetanilide was first created in 1886, and first marketed under the brand name “Antifebrin” in 1887. It was one of the first non-aspirin, non-opioid painkillers/fever reducers available to consumers. Acetanilide is a prodrug of acetaminophen (AKA paracetamol, brand name Tylenol), meaning that while the chemical itself was not particularly helpful, the body would break it down into acetaminophen, which was responsible for the painkilling and fever-reducing effects.

Though effective, acetanilide and other similar acetamenophen prodrugs did have a significant drawback. Sometimes it would metabolize to a chemical called aniline along with acetaminophen (or aniline would be present in the drug all along due to defects in the production process). Aniline can be extremely toxic, causing a condition called methylglobinemia where the blood fails to adequately circulate oxygen. Due to this, once it was discovered that the metabolite acetaminophen could be synthesized and used without this risk, acetanilide was taken off the market.

The doses present in each tablet are measured in grains- typically 1 grain equals about 65mg. Instructions for such medications were usually to take 2 grains initially (130mg) and then 1 grain (65mg) every 3 hours as needed after that.

The term “laxative” appears in many different early OTC cold/pain medications. Oddly, the best I can find was that other ingredients were added to cause the laxative effect, not that bowel motility was a natural side effect of acetanilide. So basically people just really liked laxatives to the point where you could market your cold meds better if you made them laxatives as a perk…

The main painkiller in C-2223 is sodium salicylate- a chemical similar to aspirin that is used today primarily to treat acne topically (if you’ve ever read the bottle of an acne product and seen “salicylic acid” this is a salt version of that acid). It has all the same issues that aspirin does, including risk for bleeding, and reye’s syndrome in children. As such, the warning “not for children” on the bottle is very accurate.

Expectorants:

Along with sodium salicylate, C-2223 also contained potassium iodide. While most people know potassium iodide as a preventative against certain aspects of radiation sickness, it is also an expectorant, or drug that loosens mucous to make it easier to cough up. Potassium iodide is still available as an expectorant, but usually this is by prescription for chronic bronchitis and other longer-term respiratory illnesses. Today potassium iodide has largely been replaced by the expectorant guafenesin due to severe allergy concerns for some patients (those allergic to shellfish, iodine, or contrast media may have a life-threatening reaction).

Another expectorant, usually used in combination with potassium iodide was ammonium chloride. Ammonium chloride works by irritating the respiratory tract, which encourages it to shed liquid, which loosens secretions. Ammonium chloride can still be found in some some cough medicines, but tends to also irritate the stomach and intestines, causing prohibitive side effects.

Antihistamines/Ye Olde NyQuil: 

The concept of combining a painkiller, antihistamine, cough suppressant and expectorant into one convenient package for cold and flu is not new.

This tin of Tabcin was from sometime in the late 1930s. It contains the antihistamine thenylpyramine hydrochloride, the painkiller acetophenetidin, and caffeine.

Thenylpyramine hydrochloride is a very early first generation antihistamine. It has largely been replaced by doxylamine (the sedating/antihistamine part of NyQuil) and diphenhydramine (Benadryl).

Acetophenetidin is yet another acetaminophen prodrug- with a twist. Acetophenetidin has a major side effect of being a negative inotrope. Negative inotropes decrease the strength of the heart’s contractions, and so need to be packaged with a positive inotrope (something that strengthens heart muscle contractions), like the caffeine present in this preparation in order to be useful and not cause really serious problems. The caffeine may also have helped counter some of the sedating effect from the thenylpyramine.

Rahnous capsules, meanwhile, go all out. Pyrilamine as an antihistamine (this was taken off the market in the 1970s due to demonstrated risk of liver cancer in rats), acetophenetidin as a painkiller, belladonna as a positive inotrope, extract of lobelia as an expectorant (lobelia, fun fact, contains a drug extremely similar to nicotine), sodium salicylate as another painkiller, camphor (either as another expectorant or positive inotrope, possibly a stimulant to mitigate the sedation from the antihistamine), and magnesium oxide as, you guessed it, a laxative.

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For all the people with brown and Black eyes who grew up hearing they were “boring” or “nothing special”: your eyes are the color of earth after the rain, of coffee shared with someone you love, of dark forests at dusk, of honey, amber, chestnuts, cinnamon, melted chocolate, polished mahogany, rich soil, black tea, and the night sky before the stars appear. They’re the color of warmth, of home, of old books, of tree bark, of firelight reflected in wood, and of every story that begins after sunset.

I’m saying this because yesterday I jokingly said brown eyes were “less exciting” than blue eyes, and I regretted it almost immediately. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see boring, I see honey, amber, sunlight, autumn, warmth. I love my eyes, and I hope you love yours too. 🤎

every movie poster just looks like this to me now

YEAH, PUT SOME

T E X T

OVER MY

F A C E

MATT DAMON IS MATT DAMON

one of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard (for myself, at least) is that if you're in a terrible mood and NOTHING is helping, then start doing the chores/responsibilities/job stuff/etc that you've been putting off. Will it put you in an even worse mood temporarily? Probably, but you're already pissed off, so you might as well double up on it at that point 😭 there's no loss. It's not like finally getting around to cleaning the house and scheduling appointments is going to ruin the good day that you aren't currently having to begin with 💀 And then, when the bad mood passes, you'll have gotten shit done and you'll feel a lot better later, even if in the moment you're having The Worst Time Ever about it.

one of my favorite things about Donna is she knew she was most likely going to end up running for her life or in a prison cell yet everyday she woke up in the TARDIS and said to herself "i'm going to wear hoops today!" like the icon that she is.

if you see hardware on yhe ground like a washer or a hex nut you have to pick it up because it’s lonely and scared. if you see any metal on the ground you have to pick it up because it’s alone and scared and lonely.

they are deserving of love

Just last month I found this beautiful brass donut on the ground on the way home from work, so I brought it home and cleaned and polished it up.

I don't know what it was originally but it's a pattern weight now, and I think it's happy in the shoebox with all the glass paperweights and a couple odd chunks of iron.

Someone I know not well enough to voice my opinion on the subject said something like why didn’t God make potatoes a low-calorie food so I am here to say: God made them like that because their nutrition density IS what makes them healthy. By God I mean Andean agricultural technicians. Potato is healthy BECAUSE potato holds calories and vitamins. Do not malign potato

For all evolutionary history, life has struggled against calorie deficit… So much energy goes into finding food that there is no time for anything else. Our ancestors selectively bred root vegetables to create the potato, so that we might be the first species whose daily existence doesn’t consist of trying to find the nutrients necessary for survival. One potato can rival the calorie count of many hours of foraging… Eat a potato, and you free up so much time to create and build and connect with your fellow man. Without potato where would you be?? Do not stand on the shoulders of giants and think thyself tall!!

I nearly teared up reading “Andean agricultural technicians” bc fuck yes! these were members of Pre-Inca cultures who lived 7 to 10 thousand years ago, and they were scientists! food scientists and researchers and farmers whose names and language we can never know, who lived an inconceivably long time ago (pre-dating ancient civilizations in Egypt, China, India, Greece, and even some parts of Mesopotamia) and we are separated by millennia of time and history, but still for thousands of years the fruits vegetables of their labor and research have continued to nourish countless human lives, how is that not the most earthly form of a true miracle??? anyway yes potatoes are beautiful, salute their creators.

There are approximately 4000 varieties of potato in Peru. I’ve seen an incredible variety of corn and tomatoes, and root vegetables I’ve never seen before, on the local farmer markets. Yet some expats insist on buying only imported, expensive American brands of canned veggies… 🤷🏼‍♀️ Peruvian potatoes 👇🏼

It is long since time for us to start viewing plant domestication as the bioscience that it is. Because while the Andeans were creating potatoes, the ancient Mesoamericans were turning teosinte into corn:

And then there’s bananas, from Papua New Guinea:

These were not small, random changes, this was real concerted effort over years to turn inedible things into highly edible ones. And I’m convinced the main reason we’re reluctant to call them scientific achievements is, well, a racist one.

was doing a first aid course and it kept talking about how when applying first aid to a child you have to ask the PARENT for consent and how the child's consent is not enough unless you cannot reach the parent. and then immediately after there was a unit on shaken baby syndrome, and then mentioned abuse as a common source of children getting injured. and they didn't see the irony there. i later asked the instructor what to do about parental consent if the medical emergency was from the parent abusing the child and she was like "you still need to obtain parental consent. you can report the abuse though" not even acknowledging how fucked the whole system is. i hate it here. youth rights now

do europeans know about beverage drive thrus

I saw this and IMMEDIATELY tossed it into my international chat like a live grenade and it has caused much mayhem, so thank you. Results so far:

Mixed results from the Americans because this shit is legal in only 30 states and almost impossible to get past a zoning committee so while they exist, they're extremely localized. Lots of yelling at Ohio.

---

Saskatchewan: "What's insane to me is that you have these with the population density you have. What am I going to hit in Turtleford?"

---

Bahia and Sao Paulo: "I'm stunned we don't have these tbh."

Prague: "We have these in my city, but only for boats."

Manaus: "My uncle has one of these! He also has a window on the other side so you can drive your boat up too :)"

(much Brazilian and Czech high-fiving)

---

Brisbane: "There's an astonishing level of trust being displayed that people aren't just going to open a beer immediately"

Tallahassee: "Oh no, there is 100% cop camped like half a mile down the road to arrest people who didn't stow the booze correctly."

Brisbane: "Oh it's an invasive policing operation! Yeah, that's the USA."

---

Newcastle: "No, this looks correct for the country that has bears breaking into your house". (The Australians and Africans have a bit where every time someone mentions their wildlife, they mass @me (who had a bear in my house) and the guy from Singapore whose mom adopted a wild water monitor and says it's her favorite son now)

The aforementioned Singaporean: "How am I exposed to an onslaught of your media and culture at all times and you STILL find new ways to horrify me?"

---

Vatican City: "You can ride your bike through the brewery to get beer but the abbot in charge doesn't like it"

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Jakarta: "We don't have this because we're Muslim but we do have drive-thru Marijuana"

Kyoto: "We don't have these because we have public transportation. You can buy liquor from vending machines at the stations though."

Munich: "We don't have these because we are disciplined enough to pack our beer with us if we are going somewhere that drinking is acceptable, or there will be beer at that location when we arrive."

---

India: "Why have drive-thru Liquor, when you can have liquor delivered to your vehicle? GET ON OUR LEVEL" (no less than nine different images from across the country of people in trucks that have been specifically modified to operate the business of driving up to other vehicles in traffic and selling them liquor)

---

Pudasjävi: "...I should open one of these."

Everyone: "NO!!!"

(he has decided against this because "half the year people only use snowmobiles, so I'd have to shovel snow INTO the drive all winter and that's too much work")

How does the international chat feel about the ones that are fast food-style drive thrus that serve mixed drinks, instead of being a modified liquor store?

General Consensus is that these are far more respectable and a much more sane design than "drive your truck through the middle of the 7/11"

Several people would like to know what a "Crawgator" is though, including myself.