Young people can have back pain. Young people can have joint pain. Young people can require a cane to get around. Young people can have memory problems. Young people can get migraines. Young people can lose their eyesight. Young people can lose their hearing. Young people can lose their teeth and require dentures. Young people can have neurological disorders. Young people can go through menopause. Young people can have heart attacks. Young people can have strokes. Young people can go through all kinds of things you think only happens to older people and they don’t deserve to be invalidated or bullied just because you havenever heard of it.
April 2 2015 - Housing activists pull down fences surrounding Aylesbury estate, London, England. Southwark council spent £140,000 building a massive ‘Berlin Wall-style’ metal-spiked fence around a housing estate in south London. The Council splashed £200 per metre on the 8ft-high, 700 metre-long eyesore surrounding four blocks on the Aylesbury Estate.Council bosses, who have been facing protests over the estate’s planned demolition, claimed the hoarding was put up for the safety of residents.But residents told the Standard they were furious about being penned in behind the wall and left with only one access point to their homes, manned by private security.
Residents at the Aylesbury Estate are losing their homes in a deal between the local authority and Notting Hill Housing (NHH). Southwark call it regeneration, the residents call it social cleansing. They claim they are being pressured into accepting below market rate and risk being priced out of the area.
The gradual removal of social housing (and its residents) in favour of building more flats for offshore investors increasingly points toward eradicating the mixed communities London has always had. The most important question councils should be asking is who benefits from this regeneration? If the residents come pretty low down that list, surely a rethink is needed.
Every. Time. Every single time. I always get so delighted by this picture set. And I always forget what it’s followed up by. And then I see the “NAFTER NOON!” and absolutely lose it. I’m so glad this post exists.
You’re about to close on your very own, suspiciously affordable and comfortable house. Just before you sign the contract, the realtor shows you the required legal disclosure: your new house is haunted by the type of presence you’ll get from this spinner wheel.
i hate key cards smart keys etc they’re yet another example of technology removing the eros from every day life literally what’s a key without penetration
we need to slow down a little I’m so serious. all these quick short videos on tiktok, ig reels, and youtube, artists releasing quick little songs for the trend, tv shows releasing episodes at once, people using chat gpt and google ai overview because they get answers quickly but no validation done for the source, we need to sloww downn i really do not think our brains should be running this fast
one thing they don’t tell u is if it’s niceys outside u can go outside to look at phone . just go under the shade. it’s literally better vibes than being inside looking at phone
There’s like a million interesting conversations that can be had about the trans experience that collectively, both ourselves and cis people are like three fucking giant leaps behind in terms of understanding and are too clouded by bad faith takes that they’re impossible to actually talk about
Okay so here’s two things that I think are dog whistles and red flags with no further nuance or context, but have a lot of value in discussing:
“You need dysphoria to be trans”. I actually, kinda genuinely think this is true, WITH THE KEY FUCKING DISCLAIMER that dysphoria is not a diagnosis, expressions of dysphoria are not intrinsically tied to medicalization, and the definition of dysphoria is WAY more extensive than any current perception. Eg, a lack of “euphoria”, or happy moments, and a reduced ability to feel them, is something that, imo, can be described as dysphoria. This is mostly a linguistic thing, but I think its a good explanation for a recurring phenomena I’ve noted: trans people who were comforted by the “you don’t need dysphoria to be trans” line pretransition, but later realized that their baseline mental state was actually dysphoric, they just had no standard for analyzing that.
Being sexualized from a REALLY early age as a cis woman is genuinely horrific. It’s a different experience, but I actually do think it has a transfemme analogue- being rapidly sexualized during early transition while an adult, but without nearly as extensive of a support network for it or survival techniques for it. Genuinely a really interesting conversation to have with cis women where you both start learning extremely helpful things from each other. But, “the unique traumas of girlhood” is way too often used as a TERF dogwhistle.
And lots of others, but those are two that have been on my mind recently.
Reminds me of the whole missed possibility of learning if there’s a nuanced answer to “nature vs nurture” for sexual attraction. We all had to get in line behind people being born gay or not because of the legitimate horrors of conversion therapy and it was a decent compromise to have made culturally. However it’s something that could be incredibly interesting to study and figure out how attraction actually forms if it weren’t for the evils of how some people would seek to use that information.
yuuupp
See also: the instant shutdown some people have towards the idea that HRT can change your sexuality.
my personal argument for open borders is really simple it just boils down to “i believe restricting human movement and barring certain people from certain places on this earth is a human rights violation”
i mean this. everyone should be able to walk freely between mexico and the united states, fuck an ID, fuck a passport, fuck a visa. it’s land, continuous, uninterrupted land. the soil on one side of the fense has the same geologic makeup of the soil on the other. we drew this invisible line in the sand, we can wipe it away with our feet together. it is well past time the world organizes en masse for our freedom of movement.
there’s an extremely niche plot in romance fiction wherein our invariably heterosexual leads fall in love after a night of passion leads to an unplanned pregnancy and they’re now bound together by an impending child. I cast no judgment on anyone who enjoys this, but since I’m an evil gay and this is my personal nightmare scenario I want to see a zany romance novel premised on the opposite resolution: a couple falls in love while on a whirlwind roadtrip to obtain a legal abortion
“oh but along the way they realize they actually do want to raise the child together and ultimately keep the baby” no actually they successfully get the abortion and then they get chili dogs or something
neither of them want kids and it’s not because they’re immature or selfish or afraid of commitment or irresponsible or whatever, they just don’t want to be parents and that’s not a flaw they overcome. obviously they have other issues because there has to be some kind of arc to this story but deciding to keep a pregnancy that was unplanned and unwanted isn’t the solution.
some of you are very determined for this to not be a romance, to which I politely say shut the fuck up and get out of my sandbox. these idiots are going on an abortion roadtrip and they are falling in love on the way so help me god.
I genuinely am floored by how hard of a time people are having with the very simple premise “two characters go on a roadtrip to get an abortion and fall in love with each other”
each other. each other each other each other. a person who is pregnant and the person who got them pregnant fall in love with each other on the way to terminate the pregnancy.
there’s something about all the “okay, but what about this unexpected twist!” replies that is pinging weirdly on my brain and I think it’s like…
the point of the ‘twist’ in storytelling is that you’re maintaining interest or raising the states by subverting a baseline state. taking something expected and doing the unexpected with it.
but the scenario as OP describes it, where two people enter in a romance but don’t want and take steps not to have kids, is… not a baseline. this doesn’t happen in media. in all standard instances it’s either they aren’t in love OR they are in love and decide to have the kid. the notion of people wanting to be romantically involved but not wanting kids, the notion of seeing abortion as desirable/necessary healthcare, that already IS the subversion.
the original premise doesn’t need to be spiced up with an Unexpected Twist because it is the unexpected twist. and it’s not going to be boring or played our or cliched until there’s a dozen stories like it and the idea of un-dramatically going to get a healthcare procedure done with someone who loves you is normalized.
i hate to go ummmm, actually - but, ummmm, actually, the movie you’re looking for is Obvious Child with Jenny Slate.
SPOILERS AHEAD
She’s a comedian, he is a good boy, they have a one night stand, she gets pregnant but she doesn’t want the baby. They start spending time together and are really into each other. She realizes that he is a great guy and that they want to be with each other. She gets her abortion on Valentine’s Day, and even though he is not happy at first, they both realize it’s for the best and he accompanies her on the day. By the end, they are together (maybe for now, maybe forever).
It’s a great comedy and the two leads have great chemistry.
where’s the road trip
In a just world with good health care, the road trip isn’t necessary
Like “going on a road trip to a pharmacy” shouldn’t be a thing. If they have time to fall in love on the way to the abortion provider, medical treatment is too far away
(Though i concede roadtrip tropes are fun)
okay, in a just world that’s true. in the world and country where I actually live, many people do not have easy access to abortion services. in the US there are in fact many people who would have to drive pretty far to get an abortion. hence the plot I’m pitching here.
Where’s the OP of the “no make up” post. We have found someone who has suffered as they suffered.
you aren’t gonna believe this but
that was also me
aren’t you also the op of the ‘why would you pin all your little gay hopes on taylor swift’ post? congratulations on being the person having the worst possible pvp experience on tumblr
Man I wish it was easier to be a fan of DIY electronics/electronics repair without being racist to Chinese people
Please explain, I love hearing about niche drama
It’s just a pattern in a lot of youtubers where they’ll call parts “chinesium” or complain about “cheap Chinese parts” alongside talking about how they got two of these FUCKING COMPUTERS for 4$, shipped across an ocean.
And it’s like… Whenever there’s a problem, they could just refer to the parts being cheap, or badly made, or whatever. There’s no reason to specifically blame China/the Chinese, except for the fact it’s become a standard slur in the electronics guys vocabulary.
Especially in a world where most electronics are made in China. Where is your MacBook made, again?
But it’s only “Chinese” if it’s cheap and crap? That’s bullshit. Especially when you’re the one who went to a Chinese store and asked for their cheapest crap.
ok im going to #seriouspost for a second here. I don’t think Harry Potter is a manifesto. I think it was a flawed passion project that millennials latched onto because of the fantasy of sticking it to their mean teachers and arbitrarily categorizing themselves (hogwarts houses; it’s the thinking millennial’s astrology). I think the fact that the series got popular when and how it did was very much a product of its time.
I don’t think Harry Potter is the biggest symbol of JKR’s bigotry. I think the most flagrant sign of that was how she responded to critics. I watched her become radicalized in real time. I watched how she doubled down on her racism when she was called out for the ways she promoted her tragically mid fantastic beasts movies. I watched her chase marginalized teenagers with a double digit follower count off of twitter for daring to criticize her thought process, and no one with any kind of power standing against her because she was the one who was paying them. This isn’t to say Harry Potter is without flaws. This is to say she really didn’t give a shit about that. Getting rich and powerful is a hell of a drug, and she had enough sycophants that she had no reason to care about what her critics were saying.
She was convinced that she was a martyr; a voice for the unheard; a leader for the ages, so of course her detractors were the bad guys. And I think we should take this to heart. We should see this as an example of how easy it is to get radicalized; if you think of yourself as a paragon of virtue, you are going to think that whatever you see as good and right is an objective fact. Most people don’t know this, but the majority of terfs start out as trans allies. You are not immune to propaganda! You are not immune to falling into dangerous ideologies!!!
This is why the most important thing you can do as an activist is to listen. Do NOT think you’re above being wrong; do NOT develop a god complex; do NOT form an identity out of being right all the time. Involve yourselves in the groups you claim to speak for. Listen to trans women; share resources that help trans women; familiarize yourself with the diversity of experiences that trans people have and the struggles they face.
No, none of you are as bad as JKR because you don’t have her money or her power. You will likely never have the capacity for harm she does. But check yourselves. Do not affirm yourselves into thinking you always have the moral high ground. Watch yourselves; humble yourselves; check yourselves for signs of cult behavior and internalized prejudice. You are always learning. You will always be learning. Do not allow yourselves to get a power trip from brushing off marginalized voices.
This is a very good warning. If you meet someone telling you “your knee-jerk reaction was always right, and anyone who said otherwise was not only a jerk but also a dangerous villain”, watch the fuck out
guy who does unboxing videos but he only talks about the boxes
“Hey, everyone, welcome back. Our first box today is a Uline nine by five by four. Single piece of clear shipping tape over the top, two inch, and the UPS label nicely centered. No edge tape, and you know, that’s fine. This box is pretty light, I’d say under a pound, and taped edges don’t really add much stability here. Let’s open it up and see what we’ve got for dunnage…okay, half-inch bubble wrap, that’s unusual in a box of this size.”
Sometimes a post throws into perspective just how much niche knowledge you possess.
I read this, and I can tell from the “review” that the package was NOT shipped by a professional.
One: two inch tape. Professional establishments use three inch. It’s MUCH easier to seal boxes with, especially around the edges. Two inch is what you can buy from office depot or lowe’s. It’s fine for moving house, but it’s definitely not professional grade.
Two: no edge tape. Just seal your edges, people. UPS basically plays soccer with your packages. Even the light ones, just on principal, give them the structural support you can offer.
Three: centered label. Looks pretty on a package, sure, but it makes it very likely that the label will be covered up when the box is sitting in a stack or a pile, and that increases the chance that it will be manhandled to get to that label or even potentially mis-scanned or missed altogether in a stack. Label the SIDE of the box if at all possible! And put it to the side if you can’t! Visibility!
Also, the reviewer may be accustomed to getting a lot of boxes, but I don’t think they were a professional shipper, either. Someone who has shipped too many boxes would comment on whether the box was new or reused, whether there was any special hazmat (mostly lithium-ion battery) labeling, the condition of the package post shipping, and whether or not the weight of the package matched the stated weight on the label. AND they’d have commented on the two-inch packing tape.
I don’t know what to say other than “your experiences are not universal,” because I do shipping and receiving at a machine shop for a living, I see packages sent by professional shippers all the time, and I disagree with you on just about every point.
One: two inch tape. Professional establishments use three inch.
Nope. For packages I see, two inch packing tape is the norm. Today I had one package with three-inch water-activated reinforced paper tape and one (from Uline) with 2.75" packing tape. Everything else used 2" packing tape. Yes, it’s exactly the same kind of stuff that you can get at Office Depot or Lowe’s, and people use it because it gets the job done.
Two: no edge tape.
Not uncommon for small, light packages. I just don’t see box failures on packages under a pound where more tape would have helped. Where I do see failures is overloaded boxes, thirty pounds and up, where the corrugate simply ripped, and no amount of tape would have saved the package.
PSA: please don’t fill an 8x8x6 single-wall box with machine screws and expect it to arrive intact. Fastenal, I’m looking at you.
Three: centered label.
Label on top is standard. I had only one box today with the label on the side, and all the rest on top.
Looks pretty on a package, sure, but it makes it very likely that the label will be covered up when the box is sitting in a stack or a pile, and that increases the chance that it will be manhandled
Your package will get manhandled, regardless of where you put the label. Plan on it.
to get to that label or even potentially mis-scanned or missed altogether in a stack. Label the SIDE of the box if at all possible!
Heck no! I expect labels to be on top and that’s the first place I look for them. If it’s on the side, that’s potentially four other places I have to look, which is a pain in the ass when I’m busy. And I’m always busy.
UPS, incidentally, says you should put the label on the largest surface. For the packages I get, that’s usually the top.
Someone who has shipped too many boxes would comment on whether the box was new or reused,
Okay, that’s legit. I do see a fair number of reused boxes.
whether there was any special hazmat (mostly lithium-ion battery) labeling
Hazmats aren’t common enough to mention it every time when there isn’t one present. (My hazmats are usually solvents or paint, and that’s not something I get every day.)
the condition of the package post shipping
Not usually noteworthy. My internal monolog (which is what the above fanciful review is based on) doesn’t bother to mention it unless something unusual happened to the box.
whether or not the weight of the package matched the stated weight on the label
Although I ship just as many packages as I receive, if not more, it never would have occurred to me to check. And I don’t have a scale in the receiving department, so it would be guesswork anyway.
AND they’d have commented on the two-inch packing tape.
Which everyone uses. There’s not much need to comment when it’s far and away the most common type of tape.
Perhaps things have been different for you, but this is how it is in the manufacturing industry.
guy who does unboxing videos but he only talks about the boxes
“Hey, everyone, welcome back. Our first box today is a Uline nine by five by four. Single piece of clear shipping tape over the top, two inch, and the UPS label nicely centered. No edge tape, and you know, that’s fine. This box is pretty light, I’d say under a pound, and taped edges don’t really add much stability here. Let’s open it up and see what we’ve got for dunnage…okay, half-inch bubble wrap, that’s unusual in a box of this size.”
Sometimes a post throws into perspective just how much niche knowledge you possess.
I read this, and I can tell from the “review” that the package was NOT shipped by a professional.
One: two inch tape. Professional establishments use three inch. It’s MUCH easier to seal boxes with, especially around the edges. Two inch is what you can buy from office depot or lowe’s. It’s fine for moving house, but it’s definitely not professional grade.
Two: no edge tape. Just seal your edges, people. UPS basically plays soccer with your packages. Even the light ones, just on principal, give them the structural support you can offer.
Three: centered label. Looks pretty on a package, sure, but it makes it very likely that the label will be covered up when the box is sitting in a stack or a pile, and that increases the chance that it will be manhandled to get to that label or even potentially mis-scanned or missed altogether in a stack. Label the SIDE of the box if at all possible! And put it to the side if you can’t! Visibility!
Also, the reviewer may be accustomed to getting a lot of boxes, but I don’t think they were a professional shipper, either. Someone who has shipped too many boxes would comment on whether the box was new or reused, whether there was any special hazmat (mostly lithium-ion battery) labeling, the condition of the package post shipping, and whether or not the weight of the package matched the stated weight on the label. AND they’d have commented on the two-inch packing tape.
I don’t know what to say other than “your experiences are not universal,” because I do shipping and receiving at a machine shop for a living, I see packages sent by professional shippers all the time, and I disagree with you on just about every point.
One: two inch tape. Professional establishments use three inch.
Nope. For packages I see, two inch packing tape is the norm. Today I had one package with three-inch water-activated reinforced paper tape and one (from Uline) with 2.75" packing tape. Everything else used 2" packing tape. Yes, it’s exactly the same kind of stuff that you can get at Office Depot or Lowe’s, and people use it because it gets the job done.
Two: no edge tape.
Not uncommon for small, light packages. I just don’t see box failures on packages under a pound where more tape would have helped. Where I do see failures is overloaded boxes, thirty pounds and up, where the corrugate simply ripped, and no amount of tape would have saved the package.
PSA: please don’t fill an 8x8x6 single-wall box with machine screws and expect it to arrive intact. Fastenal, I’m looking at you.
Three: centered label.
Label on top is standard. I had only one box today with the label on the side, and all the rest on top.
Looks pretty on a package, sure, but it makes it very likely that the label will be covered up when the box is sitting in a stack or a pile, and that increases the chance that it will be manhandled
Your package will get manhandled, regardless of where you put the label. Plan on it.
to get to that label or even potentially mis-scanned or missed altogether in a stack. Label the SIDE of the box if at all possible!
Heck no! I expect labels to be on top and that’s the first place I look for them. If it’s on the side, that’s potentially four other places I have to look, which is a pain in the ass when I’m busy. And I’m always busy.
UPS, incidentally, says you should put the label on the largest surface. For the packages I get, that’s usually the top.
Someone who has shipped too many boxes would comment on whether the box was new or reused,
Okay, that’s legit. I do see a fair number of reused boxes.
whether there was any special hazmat (mostly lithium-ion battery) labeling
Hazmats aren’t common enough to mention it every time when there isn’t one present. (My hazmats are usually solvents or paint, and that’s not something I get every day.)
the condition of the package post shipping
Not usually noteworthy. My internal monolog (which is what the above fanciful review is based on) doesn’t bother to mention it unless something unusual happened to the box.
whether or not the weight of the package matched the stated weight on the label
Although I ship just as many packages as I receive, if not more, it never would have occurred to me to check. And I don’t have a scale in the receiving department, so it would be guesswork anyway.
AND they’d have commented on the two-inch packing tape.
Which everyone uses. There’s not much need to comment when it’s far and away the most common type of tape.
Perhaps things have been different for you, but this is how it is in the manufacturing industry.
guy who does unboxing videos but he only talks about the boxes
“Hey, everyone, welcome back. Our first box today is a Uline nine by five by four. Single piece of clear shipping tape over the top, two inch, and the UPS label nicely centered. No edge tape, and you know, that’s fine. This box is pretty light, I’d say under a pound, and taped edges don’t really add much stability here. Let’s open it up and see what we’ve got for dunnage…okay, half-inch bubble wrap, that’s unusual in a box of this size.”
Sometimes a post throws into perspective just how much niche knowledge you possess.
I read this, and I can tell from the “review” that the package was NOT shipped by a professional.
One: two inch tape. Professional establishments use three inch. It’s MUCH easier to seal boxes with, especially around the edges. Two inch is what you can buy from office depot or lowe’s. It’s fine for moving house, but it’s definitely not professional grade.
Two: no edge tape. Just seal your edges, people. UPS basically plays soccer with your packages. Even the light ones, just on principal, give them the structural support you can offer.
Three: centered label. Looks pretty on a package, sure, but it makes it very likely that the label will be covered up when the box is sitting in a stack or a pile, and that increases the chance that it will be manhandled to get to that label or even potentially mis-scanned or missed altogether in a stack. Label the SIDE of the box if at all possible! And put it to the side if you can’t! Visibility!
Also, the reviewer may be accustomed to getting a lot of boxes, but I don’t think they were a professional shipper, either. Someone who has shipped too many boxes would comment on whether the box was new or reused, whether there was any special hazmat (mostly lithium-ion battery) labeling, the condition of the package post shipping, and whether or not the weight of the package matched the stated weight on the label. AND they’d have commented on the two-inch packing tape.
I don’t know what to say other than “your experiences are not universal,” because I do shipping and receiving at a machine shop for a living, I see packages sent by professional shippers all the time, and I disagree with you on just about every point.
One: two inch tape. Professional establishments use three inch.
Nope. For packages I see, two inch packing tape is the norm. Today I had one package with three-inch water-activated reinforced paper tape and one (from Uline) with 2.75" packing tape. Everything else used 2" packing tape. Yes, it’s exactly the same kind of stuff that you can get at Office Depot or Lowe’s, and people use it because it gets the job done.
Two: no edge tape.
Not uncommon for small, light packages. I just don’t see box failures on packages under a pound where more tape would have helped. Where I do see failures is overloaded boxes, thirty pounds and up, where the corrugate simply ripped, and no amount of tape would have saved the package.
PSA: please don’t fill an 8x8x6 single-wall box with machine screws and expect it to arrive intact. Fastenal, I’m looking at you.
Three: centered label.
Label on top is standard. I had only one box today with the label on the side, and all the rest on top.
Looks pretty on a package, sure, but it makes it very likely that the label will be covered up when the box is sitting in a stack or a pile, and that increases the chance that it will be manhandled
Your package will get manhandled, regardless of where you put the label. Plan on it.
to get to that label or even potentially mis-scanned or missed altogether in a stack. Label the SIDE of the box if at all possible!
Heck no! I expect labels to be on top and that’s the first place I look for them. If it’s on the side, that’s potentially four other places I have to look, which is a pain in the ass when I’m busy. And I’m always busy.
UPS, incidentally, says you should put the label on the largest surface. For the packages I get, that’s usually the top.
Someone who has shipped too many boxes would comment on whether the box was new or reused,
Okay, that’s legit. I do see a fair number of reused boxes.
whether there was any special hazmat (mostly lithium-ion battery) labeling
Hazmats aren’t common enough to mention it every time when there isn’t one present. (My hazmats are usually solvents or paint, and that’s not something I get every day.)
the condition of the package post shipping
Not usually noteworthy. My internal monolog (which is what the above fanciful review is based on) doesn’t bother to mention it unless something unusual happened to the box.
whether or not the weight of the package matched the stated weight on the label
Although I ship just as many packages as I receive, if not more, it never would have occurred to me to check. And I don’t have a scale in the receiving department, so it would be guesswork anyway.
AND they’d have commented on the two-inch packing tape.
Which everyone uses. There’s not much need to comment when it’s far and away the most common type of tape.
Perhaps things have been different for you, but this is how it is in the manufacturing industry.
guy who does unboxing videos but he only talks about the boxes
“Hey, everyone, welcome back. Our first box today is a Uline nine by five by four. Single piece of clear shipping tape over the top, two inch, and the UPS label nicely centered. No edge tape, and you know, that’s fine. This box is pretty light, I’d say under a pound, and taped edges don’t really add much stability here. Let’s open it up and see what we’ve got for dunnage…okay, half-inch bubble wrap, that’s unusual in a box of this size.”
Sometimes a post throws into perspective just how much niche knowledge you possess.
I read this, and I can tell from the “review” that the package was NOT shipped by a professional.
One: two inch tape. Professional establishments use three inch. It’s MUCH easier to seal boxes with, especially around the edges. Two inch is what you can buy from office depot or lowe’s. It’s fine for moving house, but it’s definitely not professional grade.
Two: no edge tape. Just seal your edges, people. UPS basically plays soccer with your packages. Even the light ones, just on principal, give them the structural support you can offer.
Three: centered label. Looks pretty on a package, sure, but it makes it very likely that the label will be covered up when the box is sitting in a stack or a pile, and that increases the chance that it will be manhandled to get to that label or even potentially mis-scanned or missed altogether in a stack. Label the SIDE of the box if at all possible! And put it to the side if you can’t! Visibility!
Also, the reviewer may be accustomed to getting a lot of boxes, but I don’t think they were a professional shipper, either. Someone who has shipped too many boxes would comment on whether the box was new or reused, whether there was any special hazmat (mostly lithium-ion battery) labeling, the condition of the package post shipping, and whether or not the weight of the package matched the stated weight on the label. AND they’d have commented on the two-inch packing tape.
I don’t know what to say other than “your experiences are not universal,” because I do shipping and receiving at a machine shop for a living, I see packages sent by professional shippers all the time, and I disagree with you on just about every point.
One: two inch tape. Professional establishments use three inch.
Nope. For packages I see, two inch packing tape is the norm. Today I had one package with three-inch water-activated reinforced paper tape and one (from Uline) with 2.75" packing tape. Everything else used 2" packing tape. Yes, it’s exactly the same kind of stuff that you can get at Office Depot or Lowe’s, and people use it because it gets the job done.
Two: no edge tape.
Not uncommon for small, light packages. I just don’t see box failures on packages under a pound where more tape would have helped. Where I do see failures is overloaded boxes, thirty pounds and up, where the corrugate simply ripped, and no amount of tape would have saved the package.
PSA: please don’t fill an 8x8x6 single-wall box with machine screws and expect it to arrive intact. Fastenal, I’m looking at you.
Three: centered label.
Label on top is standard. I had only one box today with the label on the side, and all the rest on top.
Looks pretty on a package, sure, but it makes it very likely that the label will be covered up when the box is sitting in a stack or a pile, and that increases the chance that it will be manhandled
Your package will get manhandled, regardless of where you put the label. Plan on it.
to get to that label or even potentially mis-scanned or missed altogether in a stack. Label the SIDE of the box if at all possible!
Heck no! I expect labels to be on top and that’s the first place I look for them. If it’s on the side, that’s potentially four other places I have to look, which is a pain in the ass when I’m busy. And I’m always busy.
UPS, incidentally, says you should put the label on the largest surface. For the packages I get, that’s usually the top.
Someone who has shipped too many boxes would comment on whether the box was new or reused,
Okay, that’s legit. I do see a fair number of reused boxes.
whether there was any special hazmat (mostly lithium-ion battery) labeling
Hazmats aren’t common enough to mention it every time when there isn’t one present. (My hazmats are usually solvents or paint, and that’s not something I get every day.)
the condition of the package post shipping
Not usually noteworthy. My internal monolog (which is what the above fanciful review is based on) doesn’t bother to mention it unless something unusual happened to the box.
whether or not the weight of the package matched the stated weight on the label
Although I ship just as many packages as I receive, if not more, it never would have occurred to me to check. And I don’t have a scale in the receiving department, so it would be guesswork anyway.
AND they’d have commented on the two-inch packing tape.
Which everyone uses. There’s not much need to comment when it’s far and away the most common type of tape.
Perhaps things have been different for you, but this is how it is in the manufacturing industry.
I understand why a lot of fantasy settings with Ambiguously Catholic organised religions go the old “the Church officially forbids magic while practising it in secret in order to monopolise its power” route, but it’s almost a shame because the reality of the situation was much funnier.
Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren’t keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn’t one of those “well, it’s okay when we do it” deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.
It turns out that if you give a bunch of dudes education, literacy, and a lot of time on their hands, some non-zero percentage of them are going to decide to be wizards, no matter how hard you try to stop them from being wizards.
It wasn’t just the hoity-toity ritual magic stuff, either. Popular media often frames a fundamental opposition between the Church and practitioners of the Old Ways™, but on the ground, any given medieval European community’s foremost practitioner of traditional folk magic was likely to be the village priest. And again, they very much were not supposed to be doing this. There were some very pointed letters going around reminding people to cut that shit out, not that we’re naming any names, Jeremy, and no, “if you invoke the saints first it’s fine” is not going to fly with the bishop.
I feel like a lot of folks in the notes are missing a critical piece of context here because they’re not clear on what the Church’s official position toward magic actually was during the Medieval period.
In brief, the idea that magic is a. real and b. Satanic was not the party line for the greater part of the Middle Ages. Obviously the particulars varied both regionally and over time, but for the most part, the official position of the Church was that there is no power but God’s and magic is fake. The Church’s principal objection to the practices of divination, spirit-binding, etc. was that they were fraudulent, not that they imperilled one’s soul. Sometimes this was even carried to the point that accusations of witchcraft would result in the accuser getting in trouble rather than the accused; after all, if your neighbour is pretending to do wizard shit, that’s fraud, but if you actually believe your neighbour is capable of wizard shit, that’s heresy!
The hardline “magic is the work of Satan” stance that most folks are thinking of when they think of magic and the Church wasn’t particularly widespread until very late in the Medieval period, and is really more characteristic of the post-Reformation era – which adds an extra layer of hilarity to the aforementioned local clergy doing wizard shit, because from the perspective of their superiors, the problem was less “oh no, our priests are consorting with Satan” and more “god fucking damn it, our priests keep scamming people with this wizard shit”.
The Catholic Church, desperately penning their 500th letter to local clergy:
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP TELLING PEOPLE MAGIC IS REAL
The really funny part is that, by all accounts, some of the priests involved didn’t even want to be doing wizard shit. Allegedly, they more or less got pressured into it by their congregations, who expected wizard shit of them and wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.
I’ve been summoned by @artielu to vet this post, and I’m happy to confirm that it is, in fact, fairly accurate and does represent many of the ways in which medieval people did (and did not) think about gender, witchcraft, religion, magic, and practice. I’ve written quite a bit on this topic before, probably back when I was teaching a class on magic and the supernatural in the Middle Ages, but it’s been a while.
The boring stereotypical Bad Middle Ages take is that medieval people were all howling misogynists and thus were burning Female Witches (and also midwives, out of an idea that medieval people saw all female-led intellectual practice as inherently bad, which is also uh, questionable) at the stake left and right. As I have carped about many times, Witch Trials ™ as most people think of them were decidedly an early modern invention. The idea of witchcraft as both a) real and b) specifically and evilly female was also in fact a very late medieval invention; it was most explicitly codified in the infamous Malleus maleficarum of 1485. However its author, Heinrich Kramer, was already a raging misogynist and had been chased out of his parish the year before when for some reason, people got tired of him randomly accusing their wives and daughters of witchcraft. The Malleus is well known as a “witch hunting handbook,” but people then tend to generalize its late 15th-century conclusions, written by one tiresome misogynist, as completely representative of The Middle Ages Everywhere. The Malleus also contains some anti-sodomitic polemicals, so there are just a whole stew of gender, queer, and other anxieties being represented here in a late medieval context. See i.e.:
Bailey, M. D., ‘From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical Conceptions of Magic in the Middle Ages’, Speculum, 76 (2001), 960-90.
Bailey, M.D., ‘The feminization of magic and the emerging idea of the female witch in the late Middle Ages’, Essays in Medieval Studies 19 (2002), 120-134
Broedel, H.P., ‘To preserve the manly form from so vile a crime: ecclesiastical anti-sodomitic rhetoric and the gendering of witchcraft in the Malleus Maleficarum’, Essays in Medieval Studies 19 (2002), 136-148
Broedel, H.P., The Malleus Maleficarumand the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003)
Harley, D. ‘Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch’, Social History of Medicine, 3 (1990), 1-26
Katajala-Peltomaa, S. ‘A good wife? Demonic Possession and Discourses of Gender in Late Medieval Culture’, in Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by M.G. Muravyeva and R.M. Tovio (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), pp. 73-88
Stephens, W., ‘Witches who steal penises: impotence and illusion in the Malleus Maleficarum’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 28 (1998), 495-529
It’s true that some of the most dedicated practitioners of ritual magic, and scholars and conservationists of magical texts, were monks, churchmen, and other religious figures. Some of them started from the position that God possessed the only supernatural power and any claim of other magic was wrong, but many others did believe that magical power was accessible from a variety of sources, even as this interacted uneasily with related notions of heresy, religion, blasphemy, and (demonic) sin. This represented the complex and shifting interaction between institutional Catholic and traditional/folk magic beliefs, which were never fully assimilated or “erased.” It was in fact also popular among laypeople, as magical amulets or charms were highly valued for their supposedly protective capacities. Magic and ritual magic was also widely used in medicine and yes, for sex (people have always been people etc. etc.). See i.e.:
Bailey, M. D., Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy and Reform in the Later Middle Ages (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2003)
Boureau, A., Satan the Heretic: The Birth of Demonology in the Medieval West, trans. by Teresa Lavender Fagan (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2006)
Collins, D., ed., Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West (New York, NY and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Fanger, C., ed. Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (Stroud: Sutton, 1998)
Flint, V. I. J., The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)
Kieckhefer, R., Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Kieckhefer, R. ‘Erotic Magic in Medieval Europe’, in Sex in the Middle Ages, ed. by J. Salisbury (London and New York, NY: Garland, 1991), 30-55
Olsan, L.T., ‘Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice’, Social History of Medicine, 16 (2003), 343-66
Page, S. Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests and Occult Approaches to the Medieval Universe (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2013)
Rider, C. ‘Danger, stupidity and infidelity: magic and discipline in John Bromyard’s Summa for Preachers’, Studies in Church History, 43 (2007), 191-20
I could go on with quite a bit more, but the point is: there is an extensive scholarly literature on this topic, and any depiction of magical and supernatural beliefs in the Middle Ages, especially in popular media, is often the laziest imaginable shorthand for “they all hated women, thought they were witches, and burned anyone who didn’t believe in the all-powerful Catholic church.” Yet again, this also does vary by time period, as The Middle Ages are not one single undifferentiated block. A twelfth-century author is far more likely to scoff at the credulous fools who think magic is real or can actually compare to the power of God, whereas the early-modern authors, influenced by Kramer, will do far more of the stereotypical “witchcraft is a particularly female-gendered thing and also real, satanic, and evil.” And yes, many medieval magic practitioners and enthusiasts were a) monks and the church and b) regular people, because it occupied a complex place in their belief system and was by no means simply evil. This doesn’t mean that they were “more” or “less” enlightened according to the also-wildly-erroneous Scale of Perceived Human Progress, but just that they were complicated, stereotypes are stupid, and my kingdom for one (1) single nuanced, thoughtful, or remotely accurate depiction of this in medieval-themed media. The end.
ALT
