I think I can trace my intense hatred for the whole "regulations are just corporate bullshit, building codes are just The Man's way of keeping you down, we should return to pre-industrial barter and trade systems" nonsense back to when I first started doing electrical work at one of the largest hospitals in the country.

I have had to learn so much about all the special conditions in the National Electric Code for healthcare systems. All the systems that keep hospitals running, all the redundancies and backups that make sure one disaster or outage won't take out the hospital's life support, all the rules about different spaces within the hospital and the different standards that apply to each of them. And a lot of it is ridiculously over-engineered and overly redundant, but all of it is in the service of saving even one life from being lost to some wacky series of coincidences that could have been prevented with that redundancy.

I've done significantly less work in food production plants and the like, but I know they have similar standards to make sure the plants aren't going to explode or to make sure a careless maintenance tech isn't accidentally dropping screws into jars of baby food or whatever. And research labs have them to make sure some idiot doesn't leave a wrench inside a transformer and wreck a multi-million dollar machine when they try to switch it on.

Living in the self-sufficient commune is all fun and games until someone needs a kidney transplant and suddenly wants a clean, reliable hospital with doctors that are subject to some kind of overseeing body, is my point.

from what I know of just the general history of building codes and osha rules, I would not be the least surprised if every single one of those healthcare codes exist not just to prevent someone from dying, but because pre-code, someone did.

osha rules, building codes, food production rules are all written in blood

You’re meeting the friend of a friend for the first time, who’s apparently an empath. When they shake your hand, they immediately rip their hand away from you.

Covered mine in sweet strawberry jam cause I value my goddamn privacy

https://acoup.blog/2019/09/27/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vii-spartan-ends/

at their communal tables, spartans ate nutritious but bland food, sometimes described as soup or gruel. asimov relates there was a contemporary greek joke, of course spartans don’t fear death, if all you have to look forward to is gruel every day, death seems preferable.

i posted similar thoughts on livejournal back in the day, i watched 300 and laughed out loud in the theater.

I think it’s only fair that two thousand years of idolising the Spartans is followed by two thousand years of roasting them to heck.

This.

So, thanks to President Biden’s Infrastructure Bill, remote locations on the Navajo Nation Reservation will be receiving electricity for the first time — ever.

Also, water treatment devices are being developed to help the tribe access clean running water. After decades without.

#controversial opinion: the infrstructure bill was one of the most important bills passed in the past decade (or even... longer)#the fact that biden got it passed can never be understated. that bill sat in congress for YEARS.#we're fixing problems that have been problems for decades because of this bill

Person who really wants to be dominated by a strong-armed authoritarian in a snappy uniform, but also they want to keep their kinks ideologically pure, so they split the difference and fantasise about getting their ass beat by the inspector-general of the US Postal Service.

If you ever feel like you don't contribute to fandom because you "only" comment—

A regular serial commenter just joined a fandom Discord server I'm on and people are coming out of the woodwork to thank her for her service to the fandom, expressing how much joy her comments on their works bring them.

Remember—they're never only comments.

If you're a reader who gets nervous about leaving comments, please take a moment to read the notes on this post. The tags alone have been giving me life for the past week, and it's honestly lovely.

#fandom isn't about producing fan content anyway#it's about community and engagement#comments on fanworks and interactions with fellow fans IS contributing to fandom#never forget that

Shout-out to @raiphend for the addition of these very correct tags.

Today’s advice from your Goth Auntie

❤️ Auntie Jilli

Endlessly diabolical how you can't say words like rape and suicide uncensored without either being criticised by idiots or punished by conglomerates.

It's not r*pe, it's rape. It's not su*cide, it's suicide. Not unalive, dead. The backbone needs to be reintroduced en masse because softening the blow of these concepts with advertising language does absolutely nothing but allow people unaffected by them to feel not even a sting of what they can do, prompting inaction.

And it's been proven that on certain websites, you don't even face a repercussion for using the words as they are. People just started censoring themselves because they feared the potential lack of views and likes and followers which is so nasty itself.

(guy stuck in a timeloop) fuckkkkk i got yesterday tomorrow

The Snark Is Real This Morning

Oh no! Some patriarchal shill just had an Illegal Corset Thought on the Internet!

Maybe they said "corsets weren't invented by the patriarchy" or "comfort was actually often a prime concern for most women's day-to-day corset-wearing, as evidenced by mid-late 19th century advertising" or "women didn't go around fainting constantly because most of them didn't tightlace most of the time."

Maybe they brought up "survivorship bias in extant clothing" or "rampant photo doctoring in the 19th/early 20th century" or "treating satirical cartoons and fashion plates as gospel" or "museums displaying corsets laced entirely closed when wear patterns and primary sources indicate that lacing gaps were more common in many times and places" These concepts are actually conspiracies invented by Big Misogyny to sell more booze to depressed history workers!

Maybe one of them said that she'd worn corsets, or even that she and/or her friends actually found them more comfortable than bras! Clearly she believes this is representative of all women throughout history and in the present day. Besides, she is suffering from Femininity Poisoning and nothing coming out of her silly, weak little brain can be taken seriously. Remember, it is Peak Feminism to dismiss what a woman says because of her gender presentation!

Don't be fooled! All of these statements mean one thing: they are saying that corsets were and are, always and forever, universally feminist and empowering. That no woman in the past ever found them uncomfortable, and that GNC women didn't exist before 1960 and also are icky. Did they actually say that? Doesn't matter! You know what she Really Meant- you've seen P*rates of the Caribbean and Br*dgerton! Corsets were always torture devices meant to oppress women, and any statement contradicting that clearly means the extreme opposite.

So what's a right-thinking and concerned Internet Citizen to do? You have a few options:

With all these tools in your arsenal, you are now well-equipped to fight the horde of vile corset apologists online. Remember: It's Only Real Oppression If The Oppressed Group Is Miserable 24/7!

An active young girl, putting on a corset for the first time, may have found it confining. 25 years later, with large saggy breasts and chronic back pain after bearing several children, she’d probably be more comfortable with the corset on, especially when standing or carrying things.

Different people had different experiences, yo. And corsets did serve a practical purpose.

Along with this I'm so fed up of the people who are trying to middle ground the "corsets are only ever tools of oppression" people by saying:

"women didn't go around fainting constantly because most of them didn't tightlace most of the time."

They're still pandering to people who assume that corset wearing causes fainting. I've tightlaced past the point most women would've worn their corsets at back in the day. I've worn corsets at close to a 6" reduction just fine. Never once have I fainted whilst wearing a corset, regardless of how tight I've laced myself.

But its not some "oh well you must just not be prone to fainting" thing. Ever since I got labyrinthitis in my late teens & fainted in the heat of the kitchen, I've actually been very prone to fainting. I was already somewhat prone due to POTS, but now that's much worse. If I stand up too quick, or have been stood up mostly stationary for longer than 20 mins, chances are I will faint. But if I'm wearing a corset? I don't even get the dizziness on standing bit. It increases and stabilises my blood pressure just enough to prevent my usual ease with which I faint. So the exact opposite of what people assume happens.

And I mean, even Cathy Jung who has the Guinness world record for smallest corseted waist on a living person at 15" and wears her corsets for 23 hours per day (which is longer wear than most Victorian people wore) doesn't experience fainting. And neither did Ethel Granger who had the world record when she was alive of a 13" waist. She even wore corsets through pregnancy (designed to allow her lower stomach to expand, but still keeping her waist quite small) and only stopped wearing them for like the last month. Then straight back to lacing up tight again after. Even she didn't experience fainting and she was tightlacing down to what is likely the smallest its actually possible to lace to given the size of the spine and the nerves, muscles and parts of organs which would have to fit through the waist region of the corset.

Both women were/are reducing their natural starting waist sizes by a whopping percentage. Ethel, whilst she got down smaller than Cathie, started with a smaller natural waist measurement (23") and so ended with a 56.6% reduction on her starting size. Cathie has a 60% reduction having started at 25".

To put that in perspective, let's say a Victorian middle aged woman had a natural waist measurement of 34" and wore a corset with a 4" reduction down to 30". That would be only an 11.8% (to one decimal place) reduction. What about a younger Victorian woman with a natural 26" waist working as a maid and only wanting a tiny reduction of 2" to provide support? Well that's a 7.7% (to 1dp) reduction. If you were interested in what a 2" reduction would be like for that previous 34" waist, that's a 5.9% (to 1dp) reduction. So less extreme than for the smaller woman.

Fun fact that its possible for a garment with an elasticated waistband to reduce your waist by up to about 2" without you even thinking you're having any reduction. You don't see people complaining about their leggings causing them to faint now do you?

Yeah man let me open wayneradiotv on google maps

COME TO MY HOUSE

so sick of stereotypical 7 deadly sins character designs i want lust to be a weirdo shut-in with 47 different fetishes who buys feet pics, not a sexy man and/or woman in a corset.

why cant gluttony be a mukbang youtuber that uses one of those face filters. why cant sloth be a middle aged husband who never helps his wife around the house. greed could easily just be a silicone valley tech ceo, rather than wearing a crown and cape its plain clothes and those little head microphones they wear at ted talks. like its not the middle ages anymore we can do better

Vanity, an Instagram influencer using so much facetune they do not look like themselves anymore. Wrath, maybe an incelish 4channer whos brain has completely rotted on a hardcore diet of some redpill-adiacent ideology.

Wrath is a spoiled toddler

chinese hanfu model invites passersby to take pictures with her (cr: 弥秋君miqiujun)

More profound when you consider that Doctors Without Borders rarely makes political statements.

In #UNSC mtg on Middle East, @MSF SG Christopher Lockyear says: "Israeli forces have attacked our convoys, detained our staff, bulldozed our vehicles, hospitals have been bombed and raided. And now for a second time, one of our staff shelters has been hit. This pattern of attacks is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence. Our colleagues in #Gaza are fearful that as I speak to you today, they will be punished tomorrow."

He adds: "The humanitarian response in Gaza today is an illusion. A convenient illusion that perpetuates a narrative that this war is being waged in line with international laws. Calls for humanitarian assistance have echoed across this chamber. Yet in Gaza we have less and less every day, less space, less medicine, less food, less water, less safety."

Specifically, Doctors Without Borders rarely makes political statements because doing so can jeopardize their ability to work in as many places as possible (including places controlled by incredibly shitty governments), and their one singular goal is to provide medical care wherever it's needed. They are extremely practical-minded as an organization and will, regardless of members' personal beliefs, avoid potentially offending people who have the ability to make their work more difficult/impossible. All they care about is getting doctors to the people who need the doctors. If they're doing this, it's because providing medical care in Palestine has become so difficult that calling on the global community for action gives them better odds of being able to do their jobs than avoiding offense to the Israeli government, possibly because offending the Israeli government can no longer make the situation worse than it already is.

Official statement on the website of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders:

The situation in Gaza has been described by our teams as ‘catastrophic’. The health system has collapsed. Most of Gaza’s hospitals are out of service, as the electrical power and water have been cut off due to a lack of fuel and due to the damage from strikes. Those that are running are continuously under attack, as are ambulances. Patients and medical staff are being injured and killed.  

There are very little medical supplies. Surgeons in Al-Shifa hospital have been operating without anaesthetics or painkillers. Contact with our staff is sporadic; we frequently lose contact with them.  

The repeated calls by the Israeli forces to evacuate the entirety of the northern Gaza Strip is outrageous; it is a policy of forcible transfer of civilians and patients to make the north of Gaza a free-fire zone. These evacuation orders to hospitals are a death sentence for the gravely sick and injured and implies that medical workers should leave their patients behind. Civilians who remain in the north are still civilians and must be protected as such.

We were able to send over 100 tonnes of medical supplies, mainly surgical and dressing kits, into Gaza in five deliveries between October and February. However, bringing supplies into Gaza has been extremely difficult due to administrative barriers, movement restrictions, and a large backlog of trucks at the border.

The bombing of Gaza is relentless. One of our colleagues, Mohammed Al Ahel, a laboratory technician, was killed on 6 November when the area near his house was bombed. Two of our staff, Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Dr Ahmad Al Sahar, and a third doctor, Dr Ziad Al-Tatari, were killed in a strike on Al-Awda hospital on 21 November. As Israel orders Gazans to flee south, it simultaneously continues its campaign of bombardments in the south, leaving people with no safe place to go.   

A state of siege has been imposed by the Israeli government on all of Gaza, including the withholding of food, water, fuel and electricity. More than 1 million people have had to flee to the south, where they’re crammed into a small area. The displaced are sleeping in rough conditions, with dangerously little levels of food and water; people have been drinking salty water. There is no electricity and hygiene conditions are extremely poor; some shelters have one toilet for every 600 people. These conditions drastically increase the likelihood of disease outbreaks.

There are several articles on the situation in Gaza on the website as well. Here are a few of the most recent, including the president's plea to the UN member states outlined in the post above. But check them out for yourself:

"most allegedly haunted houses turn out to have gas leaks!"

no they don't. you are merely skimming the surface of mundane shit that can be wrong with old houses with your one puny little explanation that only fits a very small number of cases. try harder

They should bring back paranormal home inspectors because it is fascinating the amount of spooky happenings they resolved with one surveyor and his clipboard

not surprising AT ALL

as I said in the tags, I believe in ghosts! wholeheartedly! I believe I've had weird experiences that can't be explained any other way!

but

I work with/in old buildings professionally

they are the most temperamental, bizarre beasts you can ever imagine. the number of things that can make strange sounds, drafts, smells, or even motion in an old building are insane. like yeah, maybe you saw a ghost! or maybe you had a gas leak!

but to assume it must be one of those two things is to ignore the vast smorgasbord of Obnoxious Stuff Old Houses Do

Tell me more about the Obnoxious Stuff Old Houses Do.

[cracks knuckles]

now like I said, things I can't explain away have happened to me. "I heard the staff door open and close, complete with motion sensor ding, and footsteps moving around the room it leads into- and also my coworker heard it too, from a completely different area of the house -but nobody was there and there are no other exits from that space" can hardly be chalked up to dust in that sensor

but a LOT of weirdness can