the pub closes in five hours

for ages i thought i didnt like drag because of internalized homophobia but it turned out i just don't like bright lights and loud music and really visually complicated things

spd is homophobic i guess is what im saying

real talk tho this is a good example of how some things just can't be made universally accessible. they are never going to make a quiet reserved drag show with few bright colors that i can enjoy. that goes against like...the entire point of drag and the celebrating of taking up space that a lot of gay events are.

and that's okay! i wouldn't want them to! i just need to find other things that make me feel happy and at home and part of the community. different needs require different solutions, and sometimes a thing just isn't for you.

It's good when you take a moment and examine yourself and be like "why don't like I like this" because sometimes the answer has like 5 possibilities:

1. "this is just not accessible to me for Reason"

2. "I have trauma to work through"

3. "oh shit I have prejudice to work through!"

4. "I don't actually have a reason. I just don't like it because I don't enjoy it"

Or

5. "It is objectively bad"

But often you don't know until you take a step back and look at it from a different angle

And I think most people assume if they don't like something it's the last one but in my experience it's the least frequent possibility

RIP Kabosu, who inspired one of the most influential memes of all time; Doge.

2/11/2005 - 24/5/24

Important to know, she passed in a loving and quiet moment being pet by her owner while the sun shone through a window and the birds sang outside

Her owner says it's as if she simply drifted to sleep

I got my heart broken and I survived, I failed 3 courses in university and graduated, I got rejected in the very first job I applied for and got promoted yesterday, I went through hard times with my family but then two years later, we laughed our hearts out over lunch, The closest friends disappointed me several times but I made new friends and loved them with all my heart. I did it once, I can do it again.

I NEEDED THIS SO BADLY

I've got these two sewing machines, made about 100 years apart. An old treadle machine from around 1920-1930, that I pulled out of the trash on a rainy day, and a new Brother sewing machine from around 2020.

I've always known planned obsolescence was a thing, but I never knew just how insidious it was till I started looking at these two side by side.

I wasn't feeling hopeful at first that I'd actually be able to fix the old one, I found it in the trash at 2 am in a thunderstorm. It was rusty, dusty, soggy, squeaky, missing parts, and 100 years old.

How do you even find specialized parts 100 years later? Well, easily, it turns out. The manufacturers at the time didn't just make parts backwards compatible to be consistent across the years, but also interchangeable across brands! Imagine that today, being able to grab a part from an old iPhone to fix your Android.

Anyway, 6 months into having them both, I can confidently say that my busted up trash machine is far better than my new one, or any consumer-grade sewing machine on the market.

The old machine? Can sew through a pile of leather thicker than my fingers like it's nothing. (it's actually terrifying and I treat it like a power tool - I'll never sew drunk on that thing because I'm genuinely afraid it'd sew through a finger!) At high speeds, it's well balanced and doesn't shake. The parts are all metal, attached by standard flathead screws, designed to be simple and strong, and easily reachable behind large access doors. The tools I need to work on it? A screwdriver and oil. Lost my screwdriver? That's OK, a knife works too.

The new machine's skipping stitches now that the plastic parts are starting to wear out. It's always throwing software errors, and it damn near shakes itself apart at top speed. Look at it's innards - I could barely fit a boriscope camera that's about as thick as spaghetti in there let alone my fingers. Very little is attached with standard screws.

And it's infuriating. I'm an engineer - there's no damn reason to make high-wear parts out of plastic. Or put them in places they can't be reached to replace. There's no reason to make your mechanism so unbalanced it's reaching the point of failure before reaching it's own design speed. (Oh yeah there is, it's corporate greed)

100 years, and your standard home sewing machine has gone from a beast of a machine that can be pulled out of the literal waterlogged trash and repaired - to a machine that eats itself if you sew anything but delicate fast-fashion fabrics that are also designed to fall apart in a few years.

Looking for something modern built to the standard that was set 100 years ago? I'd be looking at industrial machines that are going for thousands of dollars... Used on craigslist. I don't even want to know what they'd cost new.

We have the technology and knowledge to manufacture "old" sewing machines still. Hell, even better, sewing machines with the mechanical design quality of the old ones, but with more modern features. It would be so easy - at a technical level to start building things well again. Hell, it's easier to fabricate something sturdy than engineer something to fail at just the right time. (I have half a mind to see if any of my meche friends with machine shops want to help me fabricate an actually good modern machine lol)

We need to push for right-to-repair laws, and legislation against planned obsolescence. Because it's honestly shocking how corporate greed has downright sabotaged good design. They're selling us utter shit, and expecting us to come back for more every financial quarter? I'm over it.

For the curious, this chap is processing flax, then spinning it into cordage, then twisting those cords into rope.

when you’re at the end of your rope but must carry on regardless

This is from Eugenio Monesma, a man who has dedicated his life to making documentaries about all the living traditions and craftsmen that still live in Spain, is not the first time I’ve seen his stuff uncredited on Tik Tok, which is a shame because he has over 20 years worth of videos of his work for free on his channel.

Even if you don’t understand Spanish do give it a look please, very interesting stuff, you’re sure to find something interesting across his 1000+ videos.

Luckyly this video comes with subtitles so please enjoy seeing the process more in depth

"you can use our app!!! ^____^"

I can jam my entire foot into a woodchipper too but can I just do something else instead

Why does everyone say hairless cats are gross when neopolitan mastiffs are right there

This thing was selectively bred for its yeast.

Looks like you can fit a whole nother dog in that thing

one of the best tips for Real Life that I’ve ever picked up is to always highball your estimate whenever someone asks you “when can you get this done by” by about 25% (if you can get away with it). that way, if it ends up being harder than you thought, you’ve got extra time to figure things out and if you were right about how much time it takes then you get to look like an absolute genius instead of just a simply competent person.

what you may not have realized is that I learned this crucial piece of life advice from an episode of Star Trek where Scotty is telling Geordi that whenever he told Kirk something on the Enterprise was at full capacity, it was always only ever a notch or so below full capacity so that Scotty looked like the god of all engineers when he was able to magically hack the warp drive to run a little beyond what he’d told everyone else was “full capacity” and honestly that one throwaway gag from Star Trek has changed my life.

Devastating! Art museum gift shop doesn’t sell prints of specific and unpopular painting that struck a cord with you!

Quick links: Register to vote | Check if you have accepted photo ID | Apply for a Voter Authority Certificate

Please share this post on all your socials! You can also download a PDF version to display in the real world.

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your thinking of bo jackhorseman

bo burnham is the one with the sheep

that's bo peep.

bo Burnham is the 90s sketch comedy that birthed the appalling Keith lemon

that's bo selecta.

bo burnham is the novel by PC Wren about brothers who join the french foreign legion

My latest comic for The Nib was written by my friend Mike Thompson- it’s his first published comics work! 

The Nib has been a steady source of income and a huge support to me and many other indie cartoonists for years. They publish amazing work, but will be cut loose by their financial backer in July. You can read the official post about it from editor Matt Bors here.  They are still running their kickstarter-funded print magazine, but have to put digital publishing on hiatus until they figure out their next steps. If you’ve been thinking about supporting their membership program, now would be a good time. They have levels from $2 to $40 per month. I really don’t want this to be my last Nib piece! 

instagram / patreon / portfolio / the nib / etsy

Now that Eurovision is over, I want you all, especially the Americans, to take a good hard look at how the voting results turned out when people boycotted the event.

In the UK, the viewing figures were down about 2 million people compared to last year. Up to 2 million people made the conscious decision to not watch and not vote because of Israel's inclusion.

The final results of the public vote, Israel came in first place in the UK and got 12 points. Because the only people watching and voting were people who backed Israel or at least didn’t care one way or another.

This doesn't matter. It's a music contest. The boycott was still the right thing to do because it is just a show at the end of the day, and the viewing figures have more impact than the results.

But it is also a good object lesson to show you what happens if you boycott a vote over something that does matter. Choosing not to vote in, let's say, a presidential election will have similar results.