All right, folks.

Let's talk about fiber.

(A thread, lol)

1/many As most of y'all know, I do reenactment, recreation, and living history. A bit of Norse, a bit medieval, and sometimes Jacobite-era (1745 Scotland).

I am a fiber artist, head of a regional weaving guild in one of my groups, and big on authenticity.

I've had a couple of viral moments here. The first (the bride story, for those of you who've been here awhile) is apparently being pushed all over FB again by a couple of sites that shamelessly thieve screenshots rather than embedding tweets. They remove context and go for drama. That thread is on mute and has been since they started allowing threads to be muted (which was *after* that went viral, IIRC). I don't see replies.

I will share the thread here. The thread includes a one-year-later update.

https://twitter.com/starlightgeek/status/876137023589019648

So, prepping your house or apartment for the cold (most folks in cold areas will know this, but good to remind folks.

1. Don't go in and out of the house any more than strictly necessary. If this means getting doggie pee pads, do it. Your dog won't thank you for frostbite. 2. Go ahead and crank your heat up a little warmer than you might normally otherwise. It simply cannot keep up with temps like this and you'll lose heat.

3. DRIP YOUR FAUCETS. Wrap any exposed pipes! Open cabinets! You don't want them to freeze and burst.

The windchills settling across the upper half of North America are no joke. Please, protect yourselves, take care, and look after your neighbors. Frostbite in 5-10 minutes is serious. Deadly serious.

PS: your car will have trouble starting when it gets below 20 out unless you have an engine block heater. (Or if your garage is suitably warm.)

Don't get caught out, though. People will die from this.

Hey so I'm trying to watch #rentlive but the video has errored out twice. Each time, it forces me to start from the beginning. First time was only 15 minutes, in, not terrible. This time, though, was over an hour in.

I want to scream. @FOXTV @FOXTV Like, I get not wanting people to skip the ads, but not allowing folks to jump forward? ESPECIALLY if they've already watched everything? Is complete horseshit, @FOXTV

#rentlive

Hey friends, if you've been letting go of books you no longer need, rather than donate them to a thrift shop, please consider sending them to a prison library:

More info: bookriot.com/2015/09/03/don…

From the ALA: libguides.ala.org/book-donations…

#konmari #sparkjoy Please, do NOT donate your books to your local library without checking with the librarians.

Why?
- library edition books are hardier, designed for hundreds, if not thousands, of read-throughs. Your paperback will not stand the test of time.
- They probably already have a copy

So, Pearl the Betta Fish update:

I noticed yesterday that his back fin was looking raggedy. I wondered if the guppies were nipping at him, but have never seen them do this. I've been working where I can keep an eye on the tank, to see if I could spot the culprit. Came down this morning and went to feed the fish when I realized Pearl was in distress -- the frog was BITING HIS TAIL, gripping, trying to claw it, and he was trying to get away.

I frantically grabbed the net and managed to separate them, then moved the frog into a diff tank.

I’m making a shitton of waxed cloth covers — basically, pre-modern Saran Wrap. Great for jars, cheeses, fruits, etc. Fairly straightforward, too. (I made 84 6”x6” ones in just a few hours!) I don’t need that many for myself, mind you. At SCA events, we typically have gate tokens as a way of showing a person paid. Everyone who comes to my local group’s event next weekend will get one.

I'm definitely not shocked that navigating by the stars won, given that approximately 60% of you are here because of the map thread.

All right, let's do this! So, first of all, I want to start off by saying I actually teach a class called Navigating by the Stars at some of my medieval recreation/reenactment events. It's fairly popular and I actually teach it during the daytime. It's not really an astronomy class, but orienteering.

I'm having a bit of fun playing with the scale of things on thetruesize.com

let's start gentle: this map is actually a really good explanation of 1) how fucking big the lower 48 are and 2) why so few people in the US become fluent in a second language Another one that tends to blow peoples' minds. (I mean, I knew long ago that Australia was about the same size as the lower 48, but I guess a lot of folks didn't learn that fact?)