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Betwixtduality - Untitled - Tumblr Blog
I would like to again big up libraries as safe spaces for people of all types!
I had a psychotic episode in my local library while I was in there working and had convinced myself that I was in a bubble dimension and if I left the library I would die, and that being what had happened to the librarian because I hadn't seen them in an hour (it's a small, local library. You can see the librarians desk from where I sit to work)
Now obviously they weren't dead, they were just in the little office that I couldn't see into.
I'm also lucky enough to be a very self aware psychotic, so I reached out to my support network to make sure I got home safely. But none of them could actually get me OUT of the library and I was still absolutely certain that if I stepped off the carpet and onto the tile, I would die.
So I got up, I made my way to the desk, I found the librarian and I said "I need your help. I'm having a psychotic episode and this is what I currently believe. Could you please come out from behind your desk and stand on the tiles so I can see it won't kill me?"
And they did. They didn't shame me, or laugh, or tell me it wasn't real. They said "Yeah, that must be scary." And thanked me when I admitted I'd thought them dead and been really upset about that because I liked them.
And then stood there on the tile, while I stood on the carpet, for ten minutes while I chatted shit and tried to build up my courage to step on the tile, just in case. Including telling me that if this happened again and I needed to call someone, to disregard the usual 'don't call people in the library' rule and just do so after I promised I was going to be calling my husband the second I was on the tile so he could safely walk me home.
(& so no one worries: my husband got me home safe, and a friend came to check on me a little while later and brought me food and I'm fully Cognizant and out of it now)
I cannot imagine another place where I could approach someone and say that and not get the police or an ambulance called on me. Neither of which I needed or would have been helpful.
I cannot imagine another place where a member of staff would stand somewhere for ten minutes to make sure I felt safe enough leaving.
I cannot imagine another place where I would not only be explicitly welcomed back, but be told "If this happens again here, disregard our normal rules to take care of yourself."
I cannot imagine another place on this earth that I would feel safe enough returning to, 3 days later, after an episode like that.
Libraries are a fucking Godssend and should be protected at all costs!
Paywall free version! LEGALLY paywall free version, even!
“Nearly any material can be used to turn the energy in air humidity into electricity, scientists found in a discovery that could lead to continuously producing clean energy with little pollution.
The research, published in a paper in Advanced Materials, builds on 2020 work that first showed energy could be pulled from the moisture in the air using material harvested from bacteria. The new study shows nearly any material can be used, like wood or silicon, as long as it can be smashed into small particles and remade with microscopic pores. But there are many questions about how to scale the product.
“What we have invented, you can imagine it’s like a small-scale, man-made cloud,” said Jun Yao, a professor of engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the senior author of the study. “This is really a very easily accessible, enormous source of continuous clean electricity. Imagine having clean electricity available wherever you go.”
That could include a forest, while hiking on a mountain, in a desert, in a rural village or on the road.
The air-powered generator, known as an “Air-gen,” would offer continuous clean electricity since it uses the energy from humidity, which is always present, rather than depending on the sun or wind. Unlike solar panels or wind turbines, which need specific environments to thrive, Air-gens could conceivably go anywhere, Yao said.
Less humidity, though, would mean less energy could be harvested, he added. Winters, with dryer air, would produce less energy than summers.
The device, the size of a fingernail and thinner than a single hair, is dotted with tiny holes known as nanopores. The holes have a diameter smaller than 100 nanometers, or less than a thousandth of the width of a strand of human hair.
The tiny holes allow the water in the air to pass through in a way that would create a charge imbalance in the upper and lower parts of the device, effectively creating a battery that runs continuously.
“We are opening up a wide door for harvesting clean electricity from thin air,” Xiaomeng Liu, another author and a UMass engineering graduate student, said in a statement.
While one prototype only produces a small amount of energy — almost enough to power a dot of light on a big screen — because of its size, Yao said Air-gens can be stacked on top of each other, potentially with spaces of air in between. Storing the electricity is a separate issue, he added.
Yao estimated that roughly 1 billion Air-gens, stacked to be roughly the size of a refrigerator, could produce a kilowatt and partly power a home in ideal conditions. The team hopes to lower both the number of devices needed and the space they take up by making the tool more efficient. Doing that could be a challenge.
The scientists first must work out which material would be most efficient to use in different climates. Eventually, Yao said he hopes to develop a strategy to make the device bigger without blocking the humidity that can be captured. He also wants to figure out how to stack the devices on top of each other effectively and how to engineer the Air-gen so the same size device captures more energy.
It’s not clear how long that will take.
“Once we optimize this, you can put it anywhere,” Yao said.
It could be embedded in wall paint in a home, made at a larger scale in unused space in a city or littered throughout an office’s hard-to-get-to spaces. And because it can use nearly any material, it could extract less from the environment than other renewable forms of energy.
“The entire earth is covered with a thick layer of humidity,” Yao said. “It’s an enormous source of clean energy. This is just the beginning in making use of that.””
-via The Washington Post, 5/26/23
you know the drill, op disabled reblogs etc etc etc
“It’s about who you miss at 2 in the afternoon when you’re busy, not 2 in the morning when you’re lonely.”
— Unknown
had a fun experience on the subway the other day
“Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and start being excited about what could go right.”
— Zig Ziglar
Literal definition of spyware:
Also From Microsoft’s own FAQ: "Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. 🤡
ME MANIFESTING THAT EVERYONE WHO SEE THIS POST GETS WHAT THEY WANT.
(Masterlists)
Are you trapped on tumblr right now?
Is there something you planned to do before you got trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?
Are you yelling at yourself to get up and do the thing, but you can’t, because you’re trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?
Consider this your save point.
Put tumblr down, stand up, stretch, and go do the thing you planned to do. Future you will be incredibly grateful.
The Palestinian (1977)
The Countries With No Earth Overshoot Day
One struggle 🫡
Champaign Tastes on a Bottled Water Budget (because let’s face it, even beer isn’t cheap anymore) Thrift Tips
People are over living in white boxes. We now want richness and texture and colors and interest. Traditional design styles with lots of molding and detail and antiques are very in. People are making a living selling antiques online. Décor bloggers aspire to being able to bring back a container from European flea markets. People want to make their homes look like you have generational wealth. But how do you have a home full of beautiful old things when you’ve got no money? Thrifting.
1. Always always check the art. Remember if you love the art but hate the frame you can always put it in a new frame, or makeover the current one. And vice versa, if you love the frame but hate what’s in it then it’s the simplest thing in the world to swap it out for something else, another piece of thrifted art, a print from Etsy or one of the many other places artists sell digital copies of their work, a color photocopy from a library book. And frames are very easy to make over, sometimes just changing the matting or painting a frame a different color or adding a little rub n buff makes a world of difference.
2. Rub n Buff or similar waxes are your friend for getting a gorgeous, antiqued look. The thrift stores are full of pieces that have great shape but they’re too modern looking for what you’re trying to achieve. But rub gold on the high points or a dark wax into the crevasses and suddenly they look completely different. I’ve got a ceramic parrot that looked very 80s when I got my hands on it but when I covered it with gold (leaving the original dark colors in the crevasses) he immediately looked like an antique. Just spray-painting something gold doesn’t have the same effect, using a wax creates depth.
3. Darken it up. Most old things are darker than new things. Darker furniture, fabrics, accessories, add depth and richness. If something is already dark, then when you thrift it then great. If it’s not then that’s what dye, paint, and stain are for.
4. Old souvenir pieces. I’ve got a load of old pieces that people have bought back from Greece and Rome, from Egypt, from China. They make my home look like it belongs to someone who has been on a Grand Tour. A lot of them are copies of ancient pieces which means they look timeless. They’re cheap tchotchkes that people have bought at gift shops but mix them in with old books and candle holders and natural pieces like chunks or crystal or large seashells, and they look classy and interesting.
5. Old books. Do you have any idea how many old books get thrown out by thrift stores? Like genuine antiques that get sent to landfill? Most thrift stores don’t want to deal with old books because they smell and harbor dust mites and are out of date and often look tatty. You may even be able to get a bunch for free if you sweet talk the volunteers. If you’re worried about dust mites, then pop them in the freezer for a few days. I know there are those who look down on people who use books just as décor, but if you using it as décor saves it from a landfill or a junk journaler and preserves it for a future generation then isn’t that a good thing?
6. Glass display items. Putting things behind glass makes them look lux and precious even if it’s some cheap trinket or even a bunch of dried leaves or other completely free natural items. Look for domes, plain clear vases you can turn upside down and glue a knob on top, display boxes holding ugly stuff that you can rip the ugly stuff out and re-purpose.
7. Antique reproductions. There’s been many points in history since humans started to mass manufacture stuff, that we have looked to the past a re-created what our forbears made by hand. There’s so much that ends up in thrift stores that looks old even if it’s no more than a few decades old. Cleverly mixing this stuff in to your décor can help you achieve the look of a home furnished with antiques at a fraction of the price.
8. Search ‘Old’ ‘Antique’ and ‘Vintage’ on FB Marketplace. Don’t get more specific than that, just literally type those terms into the search bar, set a distance you’re willing to travel, and scroll. People are always selling stuff that they don’t quite know what the heck it is, but they know it’s old. Yeah you’re gonna see a lot of trash but it’s worth it to find the treasures.
9. Candle holders and candles. I’m actually pretty meh about candles, I get why other people like them but scented candles mess with my allergies and I don’t get any joy out of candlelight – but if you feel the opposite to me, I do understand and encourage that. Candles are wonderful décor objects if you’re going to light them or not. Always check the section where your thrift store keeps candles, there’s often some really good ones. And candle holders come in so many different forms that you will always find beautiful and interesting ones. A figural brass candle holder will make my heart go pitty-pat. You don’t just have to use them for candles either, I have a gorgeously detailed pewter candle holder that I use as a display stand for a large mother-of-pearl shell, and my pair of huge Victorian cherubs currently have clear quartz crystals sticking out of them.
10. Actual antiques. I have hundreds of antiques big and small. I just tried to remember how many of them had been bought at actual antique stores and I think the total is 5. Real genuine antiques turn up in thrift stores All The Time. Sometimes the thrift store realizes what they’ve got and will price it up, more than you’d usually pay at the thrift but still way less than it’s really worth. Sometimes they don’t know/don’t care, they just want to turn over stock so they price it at whatever will get it out the door. You CAN furnish your home with antiques entirely from thrift stores. It just takes time and patience.
an American citizen - not even thirty years old - protesting for peace in the West Bank was sniped by the IOF and the New York times can't even name them as the ones that pulled the trigger.
free palestine. from the river to the sea. fuck the IOF and the apartheid regime. rest in power Aysenur Ezgi.
