Be careful when you do this! Many applications include a section (usually right near your signature) stating that by signing this you declare that everything you've written in it is true and complete to the best of your knowledge and that you have not willingly falsified or left out any information under penalty of perjury (and various other wording to the same effect).

If your application has this and you fill out the section for professional references with personal references then you have technically committed a crime. Now, 9 times out of 10 nothing will ever come of it, but down the line they can use it as an excuse to not only fire you, but to press criminal charges and possibly claim damages (I.E. it gives them ammunition for suing you for money, whether or not you lying on your application actually lost them any money. They can make all sorts of claims once they have proof of dishonesty)

If you're going to do this kind of thing, here's how to make it real (and thus, no longer perjury):

You and your friend group should work on projects together and take turns, per project, on who is the "boss" supervising the project. These can be anything from organizing a canned food drive for the local Food Bank, to picking up trash on the sides of the road or on a beach, to beautifying a public garden, to trail-clearing, etc. Make sure all the projects are volunteer work type projects because 1) volunteer supervisors count fully as professional references! and 2) volunteer work always looks good on a resume.

You don't technically need to volunteer through a non-profit organization, but the name-dropping often helps for legitimacy. So, if you're doing the food drives, for example, you can say "I worked under [your friend's name] organizing quarterly neighborhood food drives for [Name of Food Bank]."

If you guys go hiking and you pick up trash along the trails, touch base with the local park rangers to say "hey, our group does this thing where we help beautify parks by picking up any trash we find on the trails. Can you tell us where the bins all are?"

Then, if/when the employer follows up, the Food Bank or Park Rangers know you enough to say "oh yeah, that group comes by all the time. The to good work!" Ta-da! You've now given your non-existent volunteer group legitimacy, and so when you say you worked under your friend doing this project you are now telling the complete truth.

Your volunteer project can legit be as simple as offering to put up fliers for a fund raiser. "I worked under [friend's name] for the [fundraiser event]." "Oh? What did you do?" "Mostly helped out with the marketing doing the advertising."

You can spin a LOT if stuff into legitimacy for your applications and interviews without needing to outright lie and risk being caught out committing a crime.

Do what you need to get the job, but Be Smart about it. Be safe and cover your ass.

Little babys will ALWAYS gather under a warm place like this. Anything small will.

If you are short enough, you might wake up under a bird...

This legitimately changed me. Like the course of my life has been altered after viewing this

I can’t stop thinking about crocodiles for some reason so here’s some cool pictures I found of probably the second largest one in captivity, his name is Utan:

isn’t he beautiful

listen to the SOUND when he bites

and that’s not even a real power bite, that’s mostly just heavy bone falling on heavy bone from his jaws and the air rushing out from between them

2000 pounds of Good Boy

you get me

I honestly expected like 5 notes, what HAPPENED here

More tags on this ridiculous post:

Wait, thats the 2nd biggest crocodile? Then what does the biggest one look like?

That would be Cassius, a very old Saltwater crocodile who is estimated to be around 114 years old and lives at Marineland Melanesia in Green Island, Australia.  His official measurement is 5.48 meters, which makes him the largest in captivity currently.  Because Utan is only slightly smaller and much younger, (only in his 50s), he will likely break Cassius’ record eventually.  But for now, Cassius holds the title:

He is NOT, however, either the largest crocodile ever captured in Australia OR the largest ever in captivity.

A slightly larger crocodile has been reported (though not yet comfirmed) to have been captured at 5.58 meters.

And while the famous Brutus of the Adelaide River was estimated to be just slightly larger than Cassius at 5.5m, he was driven out of his territory by a younger and even larger crocodile, who as a result has been given the name, The Dominator.  He is estimated to be just over 6m.

This is Brutus, with an appropriate caption:

It is believed that he lost that arm in a fight with a Bull Shark.  

The Bull Shark lost.

THIS is the crocodile who kicked him out.  The Dominator:

And that’s STILL not the biggest.  

The largest living crocodile ever reliably measured was Lolong, who for the 1.5 years between his capture and his death was the largest crocodile ever held in captivity, at a whopping 6.17 meters (20 feet 3 inches) and 1075 kg (2,370 lbs).  He had been feeding on both humans and very large livestock in the Bunawan creek in Agusan del Sur in the Philippines.  It took 100 people all night to drag him to shore during his capture.

And here’s why:

Also, to prevent credit from getting buried on a separate reblog, I have been informed that the above image of the crocodile with the cartoon eyes and halo was made by @rashkah!  (And it is wonderful and I would like to thank him for its existence, because it perfectly captures my feelings about terrifying giant primordial reptiles.)

@theonewhocheeps

Holy fuck

As far as Brutus is concerned I was led to believe that he lost that arm when relatively young.

Since then Brutus developed a habit of hunting and eating Bull Sharks.

Here’s him with a prey.

And if you thought that you’ll be safe if you just stay out of Australia then think again!

Meet Gustave the Nile Croc.

This crocodile became almost legendary for both it’s size and the habit of hunting both livestock AND humans.

So how big is Gustave?

No one is sure. Since he was NEVER captured.

His estimated size is of at least 5,5m  but some give him over 6m.

The terrifying parts are:

1) He is still growing having only about 60 years.

2) Adult crocodiles often perform a gesture of submission to him - something usually done by young crocodiles toward adults - Gustave is just THAT BIG.

3) His sheer size makes it difficult for him to catch agile prey Nile crocs tend to feed on - hence why he developed a habit of hunting either larger prey like Hippopotamus or creatures which are not good at spotting danger in the first place like livestock and humans.

And this is NOT ALL.

Gustave actually has a noticeable scars on his body - he was shot at east 3 times and stabbed with a spear or something similar at one occasion.

He lived to tell the tale - my question is:

What happened to that one dude who attacked Gustave with a spear?

*Crocodile Dundee voice*  Mate, that’s not Gustave:

THIS is Gustave:

And he is the PERFECT CROCODILE.  He is the perfect example of what I mean when I talk about (as I do) how the morphology of extremely large crocodiles adapts to the changing physics of their bite.

This is a typical adult Nile Crocodile:

And THIS is a god among his kind:

This is it, folks.  The Final Form.  THIS is what peak performance looks like.

Crocodiles and physics have an interesting relationship.  Crocodiles have, by a CONSIDERABLE MARGIN, the strongest bite of any animal on Earth.  EVER.  Scaled up estimates (based on Nile and Saltwater crocodiles) give the extinct Deinosuchus an estimated bite force MORE THAN DOUBLE the recently updated Tyrannosaurus bite estimates.  Living crocodiles have bite forces measured in the range of 5000 pounds per square inch, for an individual around 15-16 feet.  It is estimated that modern crocodiles in the range of 18-20 feet would have bit forces around 7-8000 psi or more.

That’s a problem.

Because a crocodile’s skull is only designed to handle so much pressure.  Go beyond that limit and the force of impact when those jaws snap shut could literally shatter their own skulls.

But evolution has spent hundreds of millions of years perfecting crocodiles, so PHYSICS ISN’T GOING TO STOP THEM.  What ends up happening in the skulls of these extremely large crocodiles is they will increase dramatically in mass to compensate for the increased forces.  A crocodile’s skull is almost exclusively solid bone, with only minimal space for nasal passages, a surprisingly advanced brain, and some slightly porous looking framework that helps the bone distribute the force over a larger area.  The effect is by far the most pronounced in Nile crocodiles, which most regularly feed on larger prey and need to make use of all that power.

Compare, 26 inch skull:

vs 29 inch skull:

Both of those are Nile crocodile skulls (or rather, replicas thereof).

And just for fun, here are the skulls of completely different (and very extinct species), Deinosuchus:

and Purussaurus:

The bigger the crocodile (within a given species), the more massive the skull needs to be to compensate for that UNBELIEVABLE bit pressure.  This is one way to see from a distance whether you are looking at a normal sized crocodile:

and a truly extraordinary individual:

One of the things about Gustave that’s so impressive is how healthy his teeth look.  A lot of large crocodiles, in their old age, have very worn down and often missing teeth.  They do replace them many times over a lifetime, but when they get very old this slows down.  Gustave, at least in every picture taken of him, had teeth that were in very good condition.

Even crocodiles much smaller than Gustave’s reported size (probably similar in size to Dominator or Lolong) tend to have smaller or more worn teeth:

than the pinnacle of his kind:

Lolong! It means Gramps or Grandpa, because he’s a relic of an ancient world where crocs more massive than he was walked the earth. His body is on display somewhere right now though I forgot where.

Every time I see this post there’s more crocodiles.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

@laurangeblossom

The adhd modes of food

1. You ate that burger so fast. You ate that burger so fucking fast and now the whole Red Robin is staring at you god what the fuck

2. You started eating like a normal person, but then you started talking or daydreaming and now the waitress is handing you the check but you’ve still got half a plate of cold fettuccine

3. You were going to go out to eat, but then you saw a video in your YouTube recommendation that drew you towards it like moth to a flame, and now it’s 10 pm and you’ve got an empty bag of tortilla chips in your hand and shame in your heart

4. Mac And Cheese

5. You got engrossed in a project, suddenly you feel like you’re going to die, or faint, or both? Oh. you’re hungry.

6. You’re hungry.  But every food you can think of sounds disgusting.  Time for your 15th day of lunchables for breakfast in a row.

Kai Cheng Thom (August 7, 2019)

ugh how the fuck do you cover letter

Greetings, Exalted One. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight and friend to Captain Solo.

I know that you are powerful, mighty Jabba, and that your anger with Solo must be equally powerful. I seek an audience with Your Greatness to bargain for Solo’s life.

With your wisdom, I’m sure that we can work out an arrangement which will be mutually beneficial and enable us to avoid any unpleasant confrontation.

As a token of my goodwill, I present to you a gift: these two droids. Both are hardworking and will serve you well.

The “attention deficit” part of adhd is misleading imo because in my experience adhd is less “doesn’t have focus” and more “cannot control where the focus goes”

Forgot what you were doing because your brain zoomed way ahead and you were left scrambling to remember why you’re holding a dishtowel? Adhd

Looked up from your computer screen and realized you’ve been reading wikipedia articles about the mating habits of spiders for the past five hours and you haven’t eaten all day? Adhd

Can’t do the mildly intimidating task because every time you try to think about how to do it, your brain skitters away from the topic like a nervous mouse? Adhd

Didn’t do the dishes because you remembered them on the drive home but by the time you arrived you had already moved on to other topics? Adhd

Need to listen to a podcast while doing chores because neither task occupies enough of your attention to keep you engaged? Adhd

Calling In, Take 2: Power, Accountability, Movement, and the State

In the winter of 2013, I wrote a piece titled, “Calling IN: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable.” Over the next four years or so, this piece would become the bane of my existence. Let me explain.

This piece sort of exploded – I was receiving emails and messages that the piece was really resonating with folks doing justice work across all types of communities. It was true and probably is still true how tired we all are of the constant worry that we cannot make mistakes – not even among those who we call friends, family, and/or comrades.

There have been numerous challenges that have arisen since the publication of this piece. The first is that it was so wildly appropriated by white people to rationalize or justify their own racist behavior. It’s been wildly appropriated to push away valid critique of racist or otherwise oppressive behavior. I remember as Ani DiFranco was being called out for playing music at a slave plantation, that white lesbians were quoting “Calling In” to tell Black women and women of color that they shouldn’t be critiquing Ani (or other white people) in such a harsh way. I don’t think I need to offer any more examples on how this piece or this concept has been misconstrued to mean, “I can do whatever I want and you have to be nice to me.”

The second challenge actually has a lot more to do with my own political development than external factors—how it was being read by my community or how it was being used by those inside and outside of my community. In the four years since writing this piece, I regret to some extent not writing more about the relationship we have to each other in movement versus our relationship to each other and that relationship to the state – the apparatus which seeks to and often succeeds at dividing, repressing, and conquering (literally and metaphorically) us.

I have become regularly frustrated by some of the contexts in which “calling in” has been used or named. It’s less about people annoying me (because people annoy me a lot) or some idea that I am the arbitrator of what “calling in” as an accountability practice or process actually means. It is actually more about the individualistic ways we think of accountability, power, and our relationships to each other. In many ways it is not surprising that we conceptualize ourselves as simply individuals. We are born into this world by ourselves (unless we’re a twin or a triplet, or something, but you get my point), we experience much of the world with only ourselves (even if many of our experiences involve others), at night we fall asleep and wander into the dream world on our own, and when we die – and we all die – we die alone.

We take the reality of the human experience as being both terrifyingly and rewardingly lonely and compound it with the deadliest economic, political, and social system in existence, capitalism, and most of us end up having a lot of shit to unpack around our individualism, and specific to this context, our understanding of harm and repair.

So what does it mean to hold each other accountable in a world that is incredibly messy? In a world where we don’t have much to rely on but the reality that things are incredibly messiness? That isn’t to say that there aren’t topics or issues where we are capable of drawing a clear line. We know how to do that – that’s why we have vibrant social movements.

But we have to start figuring out the space that exists between ourselves and our communities, our communities and the movement, and the movement and the state. Not only do we have to start figuring out that space, we have to do this in a way that is honest, transformative, and real.

Keep reading

This is a manipulation tactic that men use to make it such a pain in the ass to set a boundary with them that you don’t attempt it again

Say “good idea” and keep it pushing

No but really. When anyone does this to me my response is always “well, if you can’t talk to me without talking about X, then yeah, that’s really the only solution.”

When they get defensive about “our friendship/relationship/etc really means so little to you???” Come back with “Ive always thought our relationship was built on more than whether or not I find X funny, but if it isn’t, then we’re not really compatible.”

It sets the boundary while getting across exactly how ridiculous they’re being.

look. i don’t think my stretch marks are beautiful. i don’t think they’re tiger stripes or natural tattooos. i don’t think my acne is beautiful. i don’t think the bags under my eyes are beautiful. i just think they’re human. and i don’t think i have to be beautiful all of the time in order to be accepted and loved and sucessful. i don’t think every small detail of my outer appearence needs to be translated into prettiness.

fun fact: this POV is actually called “body neutrality” and it’s SO MUCH more accessible/realistic for a lot of people. it’s based on the idea that the way we look is the least interesting/important thing about who we are, and that our bodies are worthy of respect regardless if they fit the mold of the current beauty ideals.

You know what?

I am annoying sometimes.

And that’s okay. It’s not the death sentence I was led to believe. People will love me even if I can’t read their signals sometimes. Not understanding is forgivable. I don’t have to hold myself back so I don’t annoy anyone ever.

The people who love me know I get excited. And I am still loved.

Well shit

A new mode of production arises out of the newly networked masses.

If we provided everyone with their basic needs regardless of work status, people wouldn’t stop working. They would just start working for the things they care about and find meaningful in their own right, and not just for the pay which they will no longer need to survive.

btw, studies show we should all be working less. it’s better for us and for the environment. like seriously, we’re at a unique point in history where humanity would benefit from less labor. there’s already more than enough to go around–we just let society refuse to distribute it 

Why.

So it was a white woman who killed Botham Jean, and a white woman who killed Dante Wright, and it’s been white women at the center of almost every video of someone unjustly calling the police on black people, and it’s white women who have been directly or indirectly responsible for many horrific massacres of black peoples across the US like the one in Wilmington and the famous Tulsa massacre, and it’s white women who have a deep history of weaponizing their white womanhood by falsely accusing black men of rape even so much as to accuse black children like emmet till which resulted in the entire civil rights movement, and white women who constructed the idea of preserving the confederacy, and it’s white women who have gained freedom by steeping on the backs of black women, and white women who have fought to preserve the racist ideals of the 50s Nuclear family, and the list goes on and on and on and on.

So are we ready to talk about how white women are not incidental participants in white supremacy but rather the architectures and safe-guards of it?

This framing is really weird to me. White women are absolutely complicit in upholding white supremacy, but this makes it sound like they're the puppetmasters behind every racist thing white men have ever done, absolving white men of all responsibility for their own actions. If a cop murders somebody, the person who called that cop is partially responsible, but the cop who committed the murder is a whole lot more responsible.

Well in this case the people calling are white women and the cop showing up and murdering is a white woman so now what?

Y’all really act like white women are innocent until proven innocent until proven innocent

No one is absolving white men, we’re holding white women accountable for their equal role in creating, maintaining, protecting, and upholding white supremacy.

Racism and white supremacy is not a creation of white men that whites women have been silent partners in. It’s a creation of white people that white women have played an active and equal role in.

So do me a favor and stay off my posts trying to shift focus. A white woman murdered a black man today. That’s what we’re talking about.

I know people use phrases like “he’s changing the game” and “nobody’s doing it like him” a lot for musicians, but I don’t think this is an exaggeration at all when talking about Lil Nas X. 

When I first saw the music video for Montero (Call Me By Your Name), I just kept thinking about how I had never seen a music video like it, ESPECIALLY from such a well-known artist. I’ve seen plenty of videos where a man is being sexy, but never in the way that Lil Nas X does it in that video. He sings about riding dick while giving a lap dance. I’m sure there are so many music videos where a male singer does this, but I’ve never seen them because gay men who express their sexuality in that way are usually prevented from becoming household names.

And he is getting a lot of pushback for it. People are saying that he’s trying to indoctrinate children, that he’s pushing an agenda, that he’s part of the ruination of society. Gay men are seen as sex-crazy predators, and so are androgynous men. For him to make this video expressing himself and his sexuality in the way HE wanted to, knowing how people would take it, especially as a black man, and then attaching his real name to it?

It’s trending at #1 on youtube and there’s been a huge positive response to it, but he’s risking a lot by releasing this video. The whole theme of the video is religious persecution, and we’re seeing that exact thing happen to him in real time. He’s being called a sinner, he’s being told he’s going to hell, he’s being told that god doesn’t love him. 

This song and video are resonating with SO MANY people. People who grew up with a religion that teaches that people like them are wrong, with parents who seek to destroy what they do not understand,  who have had a closeted partner who only told them they loved them in private, who told themselves that they would never come out to anyone, with people who have struggled with internalized homophobia. 

Since the world already has their eyes on Lil Nas X, he’s decided to represent himself the way he wants to and tell the stories he wants to tell. From this video to wearing a bright pink leather harness on the red carpet to doing drag on halloween, he is showing everyone that he is not ashamed of who he is and he’s willing to put himself and his career at risk to be that person. By doing this, he’s showing others that people like him exist and it’s ok and it’s good.

Lil Nas X is changing the game. His success will open doors for more artists like him. I believe he’s going to help change the public perception of what hip-hop can be, and maybe even what a man can be.

I agree entirely with the above, but I think it’s important to remember that Lil Nas X was outed. I think it’s rrally important to this conversation that we remember that Lil Nas X released a song that made him popular in a mostly-white section of music, and somebody hated that so much that they outed him to try and derail his career.

When we talk about Lil Nas X, we talk as though this flamboyant gay man is what he set out to show us. But the truth is he was a closeted gay man who wanted to make music, and the same voices that object to him now are the ones who wouldn’t let him exist in their spaces when he was trying to be as accomodating to them as possible.

The fact that LNX has embraced their attack on him and turned it into his brand is a mark of his strength and courage, but it does not lessen their malice. And I think any conversation about how he chooses to perform should acknowledge that he was tormented by these people who are now so offended that he won’t respect them.

Honestly this song has had me so simultaneously fired up and emotional

This exactly

I personally wanna see less 'you are not a burden/it's not work to love you' and more 'you are worth the work it takes to love you.' I KNOW I'm a burden sometimes. that isn't such a terrible thing! humans are strong. we can carry burdens. and it is work for me to be there for my friends, but it's work I'm willing to do.

we need to acknowledge this because pretending love isn't work will never make people like me feel less guilty for accepting love. we need to talk about it so people don't feel bad for having boundaries and not always being up to do the work. we need to accept it so we can properly appreciate what others do for us and what we're doing for them.

yes it does take work to love you. but guess what? you still deserve love, and you deserve people who are willing to do the work to love you. it doesn't make you bad. all love take work. and everyone is worth it.