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[the-dancing-nyx]

I’ve been patiently waiting for a nice second-hand wood dresser to appear on fb marketplace or at Goodwill for months. Finally, I grabbed this one yesterday for $50.

My inspiration for this project are some dressers I saw at Anthropology that have gorgeous carved details. But I want my dresser to cost $200 or less rather than $2,000.

Of course I can’t add actual hand-carved wood, but I’ve got clay and some silicon molds + epoxy and a potential overconfidence in my DIY abilities.

First up, I removed the existing hardware and sanded this pretty lady down. She is now looking MUCH better without all those terrible stains (and the drawer pulls weren’t doing it for her, tbh).

Up next, I’ll give her a paint wash or three and start trying my hand at faking some carvings!

[the-dancing-nyx]

interesting links roundup #1

reading

"And Now to My Ambivalence": George Saunders on writing and playfulness

All I want for Christmas is a negative leap second

Among America’s “Low-Information Voters”

The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology

The Art of Finishing

Asking the wrong questions

Baiting the bot

Be a thermostat, not a thermometer

Dungeons & Dragons taught me how to write alt text

Finding a therapist who takes your insurance can be nearly impossible. Here's why

The For-Profit City That Might Come Crashing Down

The Hidden Engineering of Landfills

How Should We Create Things?

Inside the Mafia of Pharma Pricing

The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat

Janet Jackson had the power to crash laptop computers

‘Make your health insurance company cry’: One woman’s fight to turn the tables on insurers [see below]

The Really Big One

Should this be a map or 500 maps?

They don't make readers like they used to

The Temporary License of Literary Bratdom

The Ultimate Retaliation: Pranking My Roommate With Targeted Facebook Ads

Why You’ve Never Been In A Plane Crash

Your Immune System is Not a Muscle

tools/reference

Four Thieves Vinegar Collective: harm reduction for the living

Fight Health Insurance: make your health insurance company cry too [see above]

Mused

Project Random

Transparent textures

Using your Kindle as an e-ink monitor

Your Name In Landsat

other

Mystery Show: Case #5: Source Code (or: how tall is Jake Gyllenhaal, really?)

Wikipedia: Mortichnia

[the-dancing-nyx]

interesting links roundup #2

reading

America’s dairy farms are disappearing

The Canary (forgive me for sharing a michael lewis wapo piece but it's about mineshaft engineering safety which is super neat I promise!!!)

‘The data on extreme human ageing is rotten from the inside out’

Diving lizard’s built-in ‘scuba tank’ allows it to breathe underwater

The Empathy Punishment

The Final Penalty

Gold Treasure Worth a Fortune Was Just Hidden in a Forest. The Hunt Starts Now

How a Scientific Dispute Spiralled Into a Defamation Lawsuit

How to succeed in MrBeast production

How Weed Strains Get Their (Amusing, Provocative, Downright Wacky) Names

Human cases of raccoon parasite may be your best excuse to buy a flamethrower

I sell onions on the Internet

Jawbreakers

Man Called Fran

Moral progress is annoying

The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero

Planet of Person Guys

Real-Estate Shopping for the Apocalypse

Some Notes on Attunement

U.S. overdose deaths plummet, saving thousands of lives

Why Is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?

Why We’re Turning Psychiatric Labels Into Identities

You are not a commercial for yourself

tools/reference

archive.is (this is the paywall remover I've been running all the paywalled links through (you're welcome) and pairs nicely with the news aggregators below)

Microsoft Activation Scripts

Radio Garden

Tom Paine Today and The Brutalist Report (both of these are news aggregators that let you quickly see what's in the headlines and how different outlets are reporting on it, although the latter is a bit more tech-focused)

Unclaimed Baggage

other

Observations - Journey (YouTube)

Shouting in the Datacenter (YouTube)

This American Life #839: Meet Me at the Fair

[the-dancing-nyx]

[the-dancing-nyx]

There exists within language many strings of words that are great and resonate deep within a person's psyche and gives them an inexplicable satisfaction and joy......

This gem transcends ALL of those phrases!

FUCK I want to tell someone this lolololl

[the-dancing-nyx]

everyone knows that space is very very cold, and the sun is very very hot. so i assume there's a bit of space kind of near the sun which is just right. balmy space

[the-dancing-nyx]

Am I considered a winner if I posted my f8cs at a later date?

now that ao3 has won a hugo award...

[the-dancing-nyx]

Spoke to a gen z person the other night and apparently the young folks don't know about the very legal sites from which you can access public domain media (including Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and other Victorian gothic horror stories)?

Like this young person didn't even know about goddamn Gutenberg which is a SHAME. I linked to it and they went "aw yiss time to do a theft" and I was like "I mean yo ho ho and all that, sure, but. you know gutenberg is entirely legal, right?"

Anyway I'm gonna put this in a few Choice Tags (sorry dracula fans I DID mention it though so it's fair game) and then put some Cool Links in a reblog so this post will still show UP in said tags lmao.

[the-dancing-nyx]

Can you explain about fucking up the tow ropes please?

so the canal with the corkscrew bridge used to be used by small barges that were mostly pulled by horses, so they had to make a special bridge design just for that to prevent the horse from going over the bridge and the tow rope just getting stuck up there:

this bridge is an example of number 4!

[the-dancing-nyx]

yes or "remind me later" NO LET ME SAY NO I WANT TO SAY NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[the-dancing-nyx]

a fools guide to not wanting to die anymore

by me, a fool who doesnt wanna die anymore 

never make a suicide joke again. yes this includes “i wanna die” as a figure of speech. swear off of it. actually make an effort to change how you think about things.

find something to compliment someone for at least 4 times a day. notice the little things about the world that make you happy, and use that to make other people happy.

talk to people. initiate conversation as often as you possibly can. keep your mind busy and you wont have to worry anymore

picture the bad intrusive thoughts in youe head as an edgy 13 year old and tell them to go be emo somewhere else

if someone makes you feel bad most of the time, stop talking to them. making yourself hang out with people who drain you is self harm. stop it.

[the-dancing-nyx]

Curious Adornments on Instagram

[the-dancing-nyx]

folding paper bunny and crescent moon for mid autumn festival

[the-dancing-nyx]

[the-dancing-nyx]

Gothic Display Cabinet // Kraftopia

[the-dancing-nyx]

Underground/overground rush hour: people frequently just stand in the middle at the doors instead of moving further down the carriage, and it's annoying. Also Brits don't like touching eachother so full carriage with no breathing space aren't as commun as Paris. Not denying they're full during rush hour, but they could definitely be fuller compared to other big cities (I usually let 2 overground pass so I can hop in the empty one in the morning). Public transport is seriously good when it's working. It's also expensive. I sometimes like to treat myself and take Uberboats to cross the Thames.

People do use their car, though in my company (central london), we all come either by public transport or bicycle (we have a bike to work scheme in place). Idk why you would use your car. Also, see ULEZ, you get taxed for using your car.

Crime: there was once a machete murder attempt at my station. I took the train 15min before said attempt. There was also that guy who was shooting people with a crossbow...... you actually need to show your ID if you wanna buy even just a simple kitchen knife/cutlery

Foxes are common. And they jump inside ground floor flats with open windows, leading to several incidents every years.

There's always a protest of some sort happening (e.g. against fur in front of fashion store, for Julian Assange in Piccadilly Circus.... and bigger ones for Palestine currently).

Tips for writing London as a setting if you've never been there

London's a popular place to set a story! It's often imagined as sexy, cool, and suave. Whilst this is sometimes true, the thing that it predominantly is, is absolutely and entirely chaotic! So here are some aspects that you may not know about:

-Public transport is absolutely crucial to the infrastructure! Few people drive in London because of how well connected it is, and bus stops and train stations are often used as meeting points or details in directions.

-There's a LOT of crime, like, a lot. All cities have it, but London has a lot of variety. Stabbings are incredibly common (to the extent where it becomes a bit of a joke), almost everyone has a story where they've found or seen a dead body, and there are many money laundering/drug den fronts under the guise of highstreet shops (they're not well hidden).

-Despite it's chaos there's a strong code of etiquette most people hold themselves too. Some are actual rules (stand on the right side of escalators, don't queue jump) but some are simply social expectations (don't stop in the middle of the pavement, keep your bags close to your body, don't take up multiple seats.)

-A lot of tourists to the city are COMPLETELY FERAL and widely hated. They'll stand in the middle of the road, block up bridges, swing around cameras and selfie sticks in busy places, and completely ignore the social standards of polite society. People Do Not Like This. (also American tourists have a tendancy to just randomly start conversation with people? It's a bit weird and generally not done but it's not strictly a bad thing.)

-Rush hour is INSANE. We're talking almost static traffic, trains so packed that you're pressed into people on every side, buses that are so full they can't stop to let more people on. Some days it's better some days it's worse, but if you can avoid travelling at those times YOU DO.

-There are a lot of scam artists on the streets. Most major cities have these, they suck, they're aggressive, and they'll take your money! Some give you flowers and then force you to pay, some take photos of you and boost up the price to get them, there's always new ones, they're relentless, and you've gotta tell them to fuck off.

-Black cabs are not at all popular for normal people! They cater to tourists, rich people, and old people. They're great, the cab drivers are hard working and very knowledgeable, but they're also very expensive. Awful as it is, uber's cheaper if you're desperate, but buses go everywhere so it's just not really worth it.