Ottoman architecture, despite being unique and beautiful, had one element in common. In Turkey, houses came with birdhouses, inviting flocks of birds to rest for the night.
DAILY FIND: Sometimes the Internet is a crappy place full of crap. But today I’m reminded that it’s an amazing trove of free and good information from reliable sources: The University of Illinois Extension has created a searchable index of every stain known to manand stain removal solutions for each. The tool will even tell you what your window of stain-treatment time is to achieve optimal results.
This is nerd GOLD, people. Use it in good health. -ts
UFYH, have you seen this?
So I keep saying that I don’t have a degree from stain college, but apparently the University of Illinois Extension is, in fact, stain college, so you should check this database out.
Saw something expressing anger at healthy people who take up the seats for disabled people on the BART, and it reminded me:
Last year when I couldn’t reliably stand up for very long (I got dizzy and lightheaded very easily, I was supposed to do as little exercise as possible) I was sitting in one of those seats and someone got frustrated with me for not giving them up for an elderly person. I apologetically gave up the seat and luckily stayed on my feet just fine. I know people do sit in those seats thoughtlessly, and I think it’s totally okay to say ‘excuse me, I need to sit down, can you help me find a seat’, but if you assume people are healthy off ‘young and not visibly unable to walk’ then you’ll end up getting mad at lots of disabled people for using the disabled people seats.
And disabled people who have this happen to them a couple times will probably start avoiding those seats if they possibly can, because they expect to be challenged on sitting in them, and on the whole you’re not making things any easier for disabled people by policing on their behalf. If you need a seat, ask. If you see someone in need of a seat, by all means help them find one. But don’t assume anyone who looks healthy is rude; lots of reasons someone can’t stand on a moving train are invisible.
Among the smartest and longest lived animals we can ever hope to interact with and it was willing to learn this stupid trick to amuse its human friend.
Queer history did not start with Stonewall. That doesn’t make Stonewall unimportant but it is critical to realize that by only talking about queer history in context of Stonewall and America is erasure, and feeds into the attitude that queerness is somehow a recent development.
Even if it is not intentional, the impact of not directly addressing the fact that there are queer people and queer movements before Stonewall is harmful.
This. This times a million.
In fact, I have a special interest in pre-Stonewall queer history in America, but even I know that goes back further than my interests take me (usually to the beginning of the 1950s) and is an international thing.
(Wanna start somewhere? Research Frank Kameny and see where that takes you. Wanna read some historical fiction? Try Stone Butch Blues.)
And you wanna talk about erasing queer history? I never hear anyone talk about Canadian queer history. They’ve got a history of their own, which is part of greater queer history.
I can forever complain about how white colonizers destroyed traditional genders in many Indonesian ethnic groups, but nowadays ~traditionalists~ think it’s a recent Western invention, and that us Indonesian queers are just kids being “Too Westernized”.
Or how many white people I had the displeasure to interact with legitimately believe that queer people were already oppressed before white colonizers arrived (completely ignoring the huge diversity between Indonesian ethnic groups), and that “we should be thankful” that white people “introduced the concept of queerness to us”.
1. Manage expectations before you set out. If you are the kind of person who will try on two hundred awful bras and come home without one and hating humanity, consider whether it is possible that you already own the perfect bra. Often this can be achieved with only a small redefinition of the words ‘perfect’ or ‘bra’. 2. If you do lots of sports, try a sports bra. If you live on a balcony, try a balcony bra. If you are falling off a cliff, try a plunge bra. In general, your bra will be much happier if you keep it in its natural habitat. 3. Check if the bra is perfectly supportive. A good bra should listen thoughtfully to all your problems. A really good bra should not only listen but also phone for backup when you are hemmed in by Ukrainian mobsters on the roof of the ruined embassy at night. Finding this bra may require accepting the starring role in a film of dubious quality, but it will be worth it in the end. 4. Can you undo the bra with one hand? Can anyone undo the bra with one hand? What about two hands? Three? Can anyone take off the bra at all? Are its complexities within the wit of humankind to comprehend? If the answer to all these questions is no, buy the bra. You probably shouldn’t try wearing it, but it may be useful to keep valuables in. 5. Get measured first. Make sure to include all relevant quantities. For example, a bra which is not travelling at the same velocity as you is not very useful, and a bra with a significantly different temperature to you may be uncomfortable or on fire. Never purchase a bra that is on fire. 6. Consider that the perfect bra for one occasion may not be the perfect bra for another. If you are stranded on a desert island, that nipple-chafing mesh will be super-useful for catching fish. Consider investing in that bra with too much padding and/or too large a cup size if you believe that you might be ejected from an aircraft without a parachute at any time soon. 7. If you are feeding a baby, a bra that a baby can eat may be useful. Try materials such as woven rice or mashed banana. 8. If that one great once-in-the-Universe all-purpose bra is a requirement, it is quite likely that it belongs to someone else or exists only in the past or future. That does not mean obtaining it is impossible: far from it! You may need to become an intercontinental time-travelling space pirate, however. 9. Above all, consider what you want the bra for. Too many people go bra shopping with a limited, breast-centric worldview. This is understandable, but unambitious. It is not unreasonable to expect the perfect bra to be one that has saved lives, righted wrongs or made significant academic advances possible. For example, a planet-spanning bra towed by forty thousand space cruisers to bring Earth’s orbit in line with that of Mars to allow for the final evacuation of the human race would surely be better than that cute red one.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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