d0lma

I always wonder if it would help making a general post about dental care tips so here goes. (For reference, I am able to provide this guidance under supervision usually in a hospital setting, so this information is correct and expected of me when treating patients).

Brushing 2x day is important, even once a day if you can, do it before you sleep because that’s when you’re not swallowing and flushing out your mouth so plaque stays stagnant and causes trouble.

Use a fluoride toothpaste - it is the single most impactful component in our modern hygiene ritual from the past 40y that has reduced the amount of caries we see in patients.

Spit, do NOT rinse after brushing. Not even with mouthwash. Just spit the excess toothpaste out. Trust me. You’ll get used to it after 2 days!

Please floss. Find the best way for you - use floss, flossettes or the tepe brushes. 1x a day is the optimal amount, before you sleep. 40% of plaque is between the teeth!

A Waterpik cannot replace floss, it can feel nice but you need to mechanically scrape away plaque and bits of food stuck in there.

If you can, use an electric toothbrush cause it can be helpful with timing and pressure sensing.

2 minutes of brushing is a lot longer than you’d think. Have a go at timing it and see what you find :).

Make sure you’re replacing your brushes/brush heads every 3 months or once the bristles fray.

Keep in mind the amount of pressure you’re placing when you brush - you don’t need a lot otherwise you’ll traumatise your gums.

If you wish to use a mouthrinse, you can at any time other than brushing (unless the rinse is prescribed). The reasoning for this is the fluoride content is significantly lower and will essentially wash away the toothpaste fluoride you’ve just applied, rendering it meaningless and your teeth are unprotected. You can have a look at the packaging- most toothpastes are around 1400ppm whereas mouthrinse is 350ppm.

Avoid charcoal and whitening toothpastes. They’re too abrasive and will wear away your teeth if you use them. If you really want to use a whitening toothpaste, do it 1/week and avoid foods/drinks that stain e.g. coffee, wine etc once you’ve used it.

Charcoal blocks fluoride uptake in the teeth so seriously avoid it. It’s not going to help.

Don’t forget your tongue! Scrape it with your brush or you can get tongue scrapers. The tongue is a reservoir of bacteria and can replenish unfavourable bacteria species population after brushing, leading to some bad breath.

If you find your mouth is quite dry, you may have xerostomia which could be caused by a number of things. It is a common side effect of many medications so keep this in mind and drink water :). Saliva is really helpful in maintaining the health of your mouth so we want to make sure we’re maintaining that role!

d0lma

SPD additions based on other comments and what I’ve read around the subject so far.

1. Been reading and for those with SPD, Silicone brushes are becoming more common and are sometimes found to help patients with SPD or aversion to the nylon bristles in conventional toothbrushes.

There’s also oral swabs, 3 sided toothbrush, 360° brushes or suction brushes to help reduce the foam/build up in the mouth. You could also spit whilst brushing to replicate this.

2. Using other flavours of toothpaste e.g. bubblegum or fruits to avoid the minty taste of most toothpastes or using different forms e.g. toothpaste tabs, mousse or gels which feel different to conventional SLS toothpastes. Make sure they still have fluoride.

3. Performing other tasks whilst brushing to distract from the sensations, also not being in the same environment like the bathroom to brush your teeth so that you’re not as stressed.

4. Using a weighted blanket or noise cancelling headphones at the dentist could also work at home.

5. Using a video or song to time yourself and get more relaxed when brushing.

6. Try building up the toothpaste amount so none, a smear and then .5 pea size then full pea size over time to get accustomed to the feeling.

livebloggingmydescentintomadness

i have a couple more tips for issues that i learned about the hard way, and are much better to prevent than treat.

firstly, when you brush, make sure you’re brushing all the way to the back of your last molars. 

i thought i was brushing well, but between the tight space at my mandible joint and my gag reflex, i just wasn’t getting those rear molars and i started to develop gum disease just in those back four teeth. now i have gum pockets back there and i have to be very diligent in brushing there every time.

second, grinding and clenching is serious business. 

you’ve probably heard that grinding is really bad, but i had no idea that my clenching was a big deal until my dentist told me i had actually fractured one of my own teeth by clenching my jaw in my sleep, and if it got any worse at all i’ll need a crown on that tooth. 

i got a really expensive night guard (though still much cheaper than crowns) that i wear every time i sleep, but there are a variety of cheap over the counter dental guards available. if you clench, please take it seriously and wear a dental guard to sleep. 

yes, it’s fucking annoying, but you get used to it, i promise. the first few times i wore it, i managed to spit it out in my sleep despite it being extremely snug, but now i barely even notice it. my mother had to get a bunch of crowns, and believe me, you don’t fucking want crowns.

jaubaius

Button embroidery crafts

lemonsharks

@mihrsuri omg

dr-dendritic-trees

I am furious and filled with envy.

There are many primers on how to start with Ursula K. Le Guin, all of them perfectly fine, but I haven’t seen any that just go with “Start with what’s available and easily accessible”. 

���The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is available online, and it’s only four typewritten pages. Confession: I hadn’t read this until today. You may think, as I did, because you know the story through osmosis (as probably many people who are familiar with sci-fi do) you don’t need to read it. You would be wrong.

This website has collated stories that are available online. They all appear to be from free sources like Baen, Lightspeed, and Clarkesworld.

On Le Guin’s personal website there is a great deal of stuff: poetry (original and in translation), book excerpts, interviews, and writing advice. 

She blogged pretty extensively for many years, and there’s some lovely stuff in there. Her penultimate entry was about her cat Pard and the Time Machine. (just Ctrl + F for “pard” on the archive index. Trust me.)

Don’t let me stop you from going to the library or your online bookstore of choice to get her books, of course, but there’s plenty of stuff available that you don’t have to go very far to access.

good emotional skills to know 4 college but also in general

this is stuff that i’ve found helpful and am in the process of working on. they may not be achievable for you without help and may not work for your specific circumstance, but this is a list of suggestions that you might be able to think about. i am also not a mental health professional so please do feel free to contradict me!!

text alternatives are about the purpose of the image, not about every little detail

The questions you ask yourself when creating the primary text alternative for an image should not be 

It should be 

“In context” is important. 

Think your friend across the room who is scrolling Tumblr on their own phone and not looking at your phone which you, too, are using to scroll Tumblr, and a short post makes you laugh. You’d probably say whatever text is in the post (potentially abbreviated) and then if, say, a meme was used, you would say what the meme is, not what the photo is.

Imagine (I say, as if you have never seen this online) if every time someone used a memetic image they included a wall of text explaining the content of the image, with subjective, redundant or even incorrect details:

A photograph of a man in partial profile from the right arm up. He is standing outside with city buildings and a teenage or young adult boy’s face in the background. He has light brown skin, dark coily hair, and a short beard. His mouth is open, and he is wearing a backwards neon pink baseball cap, silver-framed futuristic sunglasses, a candy necklace, a neon green t-shirt, and a wide silver cuff bracelet. He has one wired earbud in, and is holding up a white bottle without a label that is shaped like a bottle for salad dressing. The caption on the bottom is yellow text all in lower case. It reads, “cheers I’ll drink to that bro.” The log in the bottom right corner says “bracket adult swim dot com bracket”.

instead of its moniker/purpose

meme: Eric Andre cheers I’ll drink to that bro

If you know the meme, you know what that means. In the context of Tumblr, a user can be expected to know the purpose & significance of a meme, because that is literally what a meme is! 

If you don’t know the meme, in nine words and 36 characters you have enough information to search for or ask for more. With the long description, you have no clue what the image actually is on the whole nor what purpose it is serving on the page until the the second to last sentence.

It takes me about ~2 seconds to look at the meme in question (shown below) recognize it, and read the caption.

The long text description above takes more than 51 seconds for Natural Reader text to speech software to read aloud. 

The short one takes only four (4) seconds.

Which text alternative do you think provides the most equivalent experience to someone looking at the image?

For additional information on established web accessibility standards for text alternatives, you can go to:

kny111

Hey everyone, if you didn’t know; when filing for your taxes (I used turbotax free efile) and if you didn’t receive 1 or both your stimulus checks (I didn’t get my second but did get the first) there’s an option where you can place the amount owed (which you can check on the IRS website for status of your stimulus to put the right amount or just to double check status before filing) and that amount will be added to your subtotal! There’s also a free file version turbotax for low income folks here. I just filed and was able to add the 2nd stim check I aint get successfully. (**Reminder that you’d still have to wait to have the filing accepted before you can receive your money!)

doitninetimes

Signal boost!

Also, if you made under 72k (in 2020), it should be free to file your taxes, but a lot of the tax companies make it very hard to find the right link to the free version, and also will try every trick in the book to make you pay anyway.

IRS page for free file links.

If you make over 72k, they have free fillable forms you can use, or you can see if it makes sense to use a low cost prep service like freetaxusa.com (free federal taxes,~$15 for state returns I used them last year and it was fine?) or creditkarma.com (never used it but it’s supposed to be free).

If you would like some hand-holding (taxes are annoying, confusing, and scary), there are many organizations that offer free tax prep assistance. Check out this IRS page, or search for FREE TAX PREP YOUR LOCATION online.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/free-tax-return-preparation-for-qualifying-taxpayers

thesepossessedbylight

“If you made under 72k it should be free to file your taxes” what, genuinely, the fuck. In my country the IRS has a website and it knows how much I’ve earned and it calculates it for me. Free. With no work on my part. Regardless of how much I’ve earned. What the fuck, America.

evercassidy

Also if you’re like me and turbo tax, HR block and tax act all tried to screw you over 74$ when you don’t make shit then try TAXSLAYER. Let me file completely free with no bullshit while the others all wanted to charge me 100$ plus to file. Fuck those companies don’t give them a dime.

Dealing With Executive Dysfunction - A Masterpost

mwagneto

the fact that people actually pay for all these different shitty streaming services and i keep hearing shit like “oh they’re gonna have [movie from like 2005] on Disney+ so guess I’ll suck some capitalist dick!” ……..piracy is RIGHT THERE either use a pirate site or stop complaining about how expensive it is to give money to 15 different leeches so you can watch all your favourite movies (if you’re lucky and they have them which they often don’t) when you could just hit up fucking Google and watch it for free

mwagneto

i literally never paid to watch a movie or show in my life and here’s how

you can find basically everything on the first two, on the off chance you can’t, try primewire. kimcartoon only has cartoons (duh) but it has literally every cartoon as far as i can tell. the last thing you need is thirty different greedy awful streaming sites who think password sharing is theft when these sites are right here for free

otterandterrier

openload.watch also has EVERYTHING and with subtitles in many languages!

and for spanish-speakers, poseidonhd.co is also good, although you’re probably going to need a good pop-up blocker (ublock origin)

lipglossgf

flixtor.to for films released within the last 6 months and tv episodes within the last 3 months, no ads and 1080p. u can watch netflix shows the same day they come out

tsscat

123movies is also a good host site but search up the title bc they’re constantly moving and have like 20 serves/copycats rn.

jamaicanblackcastoroil

Also the Pirate Bay is back

dicapitoe

Showbox and moviebox are pretty decent too

phattittyenergy

I swear by vumoo if you want another good streaming site

mangobutteronbothsides

This is a lost art amongst gen x-ers

histtree

here’s some more multi-media stuff. happy pirating + make sure to use a vpn/malwarebytes/adblock.

in general? here’s the eye. public database for anything your heart desires. mainly roms though.

if you want to stream anime, twist.moe is a spectacular site. for manga, you can use mangadex.

library genesis and sci-hub are good for reading, and sci-hub is dedicated to, you guessed it, scientific articles.

123tv has live televison.

for game cracks, roms, etc. here’s r/crackwatch, vimm’s lair which is mostly retro stuff, steam underground, and fitgirl repacks.

ytmp3 is a website that converts youtube videos to mp3 or mp4, excellent for free music.

fangirl-shayla

Guys, I cannot stress how GREAT watchcartoononline.io is! It has nearly EVERYTHING including anime! It may not all be best quality, but it’s there! Little to no adds, and you can download all of it in little minutes!

sansrey

im just gonna drop this spreadsheet of pokemon roms here

beserkerjewel

watchcartoononline.io has a new url. It’s wcostream.com now!

bananahomo

I reblogged this last month, tagged it, and said “might as well see if it works.” I used this video as a reference to find all the forms that i needed (which is A LOT, especially if you’re a dependent) and sent them through the mail, not really allowing myself to hope.

dude.

$2,714 of medical debt from my top surgery - gone. im shaking this was such a weight on me for 2 years and it fucking worked. what the fuck.

antigonick

Extremely niche but I want to look a little into colour theory or colour as a literary motif or really accessible colour science. Anyone’s read something good about this? (except for Goethe���s Theory of Colours which I have and is a blast and a little dizzying—Goethe you did it again you beautiful weirdo.)

antigonick

Thank you so much for all your help, you’ve given me a ton to think about!

If anyone else wants to disappear into the rabbit hole, here are a few of the recommended texts available online:

And my own only amount to— J. W. Goethe���s Theory of Colours and Rebecca Lindenberg’s Love, a Footnote.

aggressivewhenstartled

This is why I get meal kits. Do I need them? No. Can I easily make them myself? For way cheaper? Yes. WILL I??? No.

Other tips: if you are going to buy things that aren’t pre-taxed, you need to make a habit of always doing the prep AS SOON AS YOU GET HOME. it will NEVER HAPPEN if you don’t.

Get the bulk pack of steaks! But you are never gonna eat them before they go bad. If you freeze them in individual ziplocks as soon as you unpack you probably will?

Get the celery, but you need to cut it ALL UP and store it in the fridge in water or it will rot.

And don’t do all tgese at once, get like, one or two prep things a trip. You aren’t gonna get it started if it’s a huge task.

quiteliterallyhotsauce

Research by Black Female Professor Reveals Startling Truth That White Women Made Up 40% of Slaveowners

A set of data uncovered by University of California-Berkeley professor reveals southern white women played a heavier role in the enslavement of Africans

Kiersten Willis

https://atlantablackstar.com/2019/05/25/research-by-black-female-professor-reveals-startling-truth-that-white-women-made-up-40-of-slaveowners/

This is the book for those that want to pick it up. Quarter of the way through and it’s destroying the white woman ignorance and frailty charade. Great read so far.

A good read on this is The Half Has Never Been Told, by Edward Baptist. 

prodigaldaughterx

Dr. Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers is the black female professor

the-little-she-devil

To all the White women who like to act like they’re not enforcers of White supremacy and also get benefits from said system, here you go.

hundondestiny

the half has never been told is available on LibGen

wordsaremylife

Healthcare PSA

prismatic-bell

Tiktok removed this, so keep it moving!

catalystofthesoul

So this is just a PSA, y'all should never sign a contract until you read it. I’m talking in rl right now. I just got through reading my employee handbook/service contract and my bosses slipped in a lot of bullshit like telling me I can’t complain about my job on social media, demanding I work off the clock in the name of good service, expects me to show up on time during inclimate weather, and considered disability or religious accommodation a direct threat to the company.

These are all things I took issue with and brought to my employer for further discussion before signing the contract. Most of my coworkers signed without reading, treating it like an internet terms of service contract.

Tl;dr real life is serious shit, lawyers write contracts to protect your employer FROM YOU, read contracts before you sign them - fucking ARGUE about contracts before you sign them

lyrslair

Also important to note, and something my bf has repeated to me many times: a contract is a negotiation until it is signed, and YOU ARE ALLOWED TO AMEND IT. Tech companies often put some bs in there about “we own everything you make while you work for us” which broadly applied also means anything done on your own time. He always ALWAYS does write-in amendments with initial and date to state that they only own things done FOR the company, on company time, because there have been companies that enforced that bullshit when somebody had a personal side project the company decided they wanted to steal. There’s only one company that threw a fit at his attempts to amend it and he considered that a huge red flag and refused to sign, turned down the job.

Never. EVER. Sign shit without reading it. Also: if your prospective employer won’t let you take the thing home to read before you sign it and says you need to sign it then and there THAT IS A RED FLAG. The job I had that turned out to be abusive as shit was like that. Every other job I’ve been able to bring the contract home to my parents to have a more experienced set of eyes on it. It’s also common practice in some fields to have one’s attorney look over it before signing. So never let them tell you that you can’t look over it with someone else. That’s a fat load of shit. For “lower level” jobs they may not accept amendments to the contract but if they won’t even give you the proper time to read it over, they’re trying to pull some bullshit on you and you’re going to regret it if you sign. Even if there’s nothing bad in what you signed it’s an example of how they are going to treat you while you’re there. Take it to heart and run like fucking hell.

asryakino

Please also tell your coworkers. Inform others. Tell everyone. Please, for the lovee of everything TELL PEOPLE THEY ARE ALLOWED TO DO THESE THINGS.

Companies BANK on the fact you’re not going to read it. Then they slip in shit like ‘you can’t talk about your wages’ because they want you to keep quiet, so thy can pay that guy six bucks, and pay the guy over there fifteen and pay you eight. They want you to accept it all blindly. PLEASE DON’T STAY BLIND.

Yes, I’ve lost out on jobs because I wanted to read it and they didn’t want me to. Or they wanted m to resign and I said no to to the things they added that I pointed out were unfair and borderline illegal. 

Read shit. Tell everyone else to read shit. BE INFORMED. 

cricketcat9

Absolutely 100% good advice ☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼

Never ever ever sign shit without reading and re-reading it! Take it home, show it to someone more experienced, if you can, show it to a lawyer. A contract is supposed to work for both sides. A company in Toronto tried to make me sign a contract with clause that in event of me leaving the job I will not work in a similar position anywhere in Ontario. Yeah, right, not enforceable in court, dudes, you can’t prevent me from making a living. Read the shit and don’t let them intimidate you. 

phoenixonwheels

I have line-edited contracts before signing on multiple occasions. If you line edit something out of the contract (cross out and initial + date), it no longer applies to you. If the employer co-signs the contract afterwards it’s official. If they didn’t bother to read through your line edits that’s on them.

howtoimpersonateanadult

Also, try to either familiarize yourself with the labor laws where you live, or connect with a union or other entity that exists to protect workers’ rights, because sometimes a company will depend on you not knowing your rights in order to demand you agree to something that’s illegal for them to ask of you - unpaid overtime and not discussing your salary are ILLEGAL demands in many places! And in many places, a contract can’t sign away some of those rights, which is important to know about.

favorite video essays:

iplaytolosebitch

x

thehappysnail

Holy fuck

musingsofaraven

This works best if you keep windows closed.

Another design is using 2 20x25x1 filters, taping them to the sides of the box fan and then to each other so they sort of make a triangle, then cutting cardboard to make a top and bottom to the triangle.

This was discovered as a more effective design during the 2020 US west coast fires.

https://tombuildsstuff.blogspot.com/2013/06/better-box-fan-air-purifier.html

Better Box Fan Air Purifier

A better more efficient and odor eliminating homemade air purifier than just taping a 20x20x1 filter to a box fan. Sometimes you need to

https://tombuildsstuff.blogspot.com/2013/06/better-box-fan-air-purifier.html

some video essays that make me go absolutely bonkers fucking yonkers:

livingmeatloaf

[image ID: black words on a white rectangle in numbered bullet point format. Behind the white rectangle is a background of beige and gold, showing text on a page and gold and black jewelry. The main text reads as follows:

How to say: 'Sorry, I'm not doing that for free.'

• 'Thank you for thinking of me, this sounds like a great fit, can I just check whether this is a paid opportunity?' ['paid opportunity' is bolded].
• 'This sounds like such an interesting project! Here's a link to the current services I offer, I think xxx would be the best fit' or '...here's a copy of my media kit, which includes my rate card' ['current services I offer' is bolded].
• 'Thank you so much for considering me for this. Unfortunately I'm unable to take on any unpaid projects at the moment, but if that changes in the future I'd love to get back in touch' ['unpaid projects' is bolded].
• 'Thanks so much for your inquiry! Out of respect for my paying clients I am unable to give detailed advice via DMs, but here's where you can book a consultation, and I have a wealth of free resources at xxx' ['respect for my paying clients' is bolded].

End ID]

anarchistcommunism

Guns and Community Self-Defense

After the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin its important for lefties in the USA to understand the need for arming themselves when appropriate. Right-wing militias are only getting bolder, and they will be encouraged to commit acts of stochastic terrorism by the police and right-wing pundits. Forewarned is forearmed. 

Resources:

Socialist Rifle Association

“The Socialist Rifle Association’s mission is to uphold the right of the working class to keep and bear arms and maintain the skills necessary for self and community defense.” Find a local chapter in the USA here.

Huey P. Newton Gun Club

“Our mission is to educate the masses of people on the necessity of self. That includes self-preservation, self-defense, and self-sufficiency through militant culture. Safety, caution, and attention to detail are at the core of our way of life. We desire a world of peace, justice, and equality for all humanity, and specifically people of color.“

Redneck Revolt

“Redneck Revolt is a national network of community defense projects from a broad spread of political, religious, and cultural backgrounds. It is a pro-worker, anti-racist organization that focuses on working class liberation from the oppressive systems which dominate our lives. In states where it is legal to practice armed community defense, many branches choose to become John Brown Gun Clubs, training ourselves and our communities in defense and mutual aid.”

Unicorn Riot

“Unicorn Riot is a decentralized, educational 501©(3) non-profit media organization of artists and journalists. Our work is dedicated to exposing root causes of dynamic social and environmental issues through amplifying stories and exploring sustainable alternatives in today’s globalized world.”

Reading: 

Setting Sights Histories And Reflections On Community Armed Self Defense

“This wide-ranging anthology uncovers the hidden histories and ideas of community armed self-defense, exploring how it has been used by marginalized and oppressed communities as well as anarchists and radicals within significant social movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.”

Good Guys with Guns: Why the left should arm itself

“If you don’t have the means to defend yourself, the state will do whatever it wants to you,” she said. “Even when a firearm is not used, a firearm is a symbol of power.”

Doxcare: Prevention and Aftercare for Those Targeted by Doxxing and Political Harassment

“This step-by-step guide explains how to protect yourself from online stalkers, why it is important, and what to do if you are targeted for “doxxing”—the publishing of your private information. In a era of universal surveillance, when livestreamers broadcast every major demonstration while fascists, FBI agents, and police officers comb through social media posts to gather intelligence with which to harass activists, there has never been a better time to take steps to secure your privacy. Here’s how.“

I’m a left-wing anarchist. Guns aren’t just for right-wingers.

“The police will not protect us; neither will the military, or well-meaning liberals, or your favorite oh-so-progressive politicians. It is not in their interest to do so, and recognizing that is imperative to the survival of those who reject this vile status quo.”

The Rifle on the Wall: A Left Argument for Gun Rights

“That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.” – George Orwell

Guns and the Left

““Guns are a necessary form of self-defense so long as there is an oppressive, racist state that exists to uphold white supremacy,” Caldwell said. This doesn’t just mean self-defense in the traditional sense — defending one’s body from harm — but also the collective defense of marginalized communities.”

anarchistcommunism

Resharing this in light of recent events at Capitol Hill. Stay strong, stay safe, and stay together!

joesugggs

FAMOUS AUTHORS

TEXTBOOKS

MATH AND SCIENCE

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

PLAYS

MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

HISTORY AND CULTURE

RARE BOOKS

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

MYSTERY

POETRY

MISC

science-junkie

… and here is a gift for all of us.